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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26226271">Burning House</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Firewatchers_Daughter/pseuds/A_Firewatchers_Daughter'>A_Firewatchers_Daughter</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Hour (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:40:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>27,279</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26226271</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Firewatchers_Daughter/pseuds/A_Firewatchers_Daughter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A need to escape the trauma around them takes Randall and Lix to Scotland. They miscalculated one thing: some scars don't vanish with a change of scenery. </p><p>"I had a dream about a burning house; you were stuck inside, I couldn't get you out; I lay beside you and pulled you close; and the two of us went up in smoke." ('Burning House', Cam)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Randall Brown/Lix Storm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Too Close</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>These were the days he could bear no more of. Days filled with fear, with grief, with uncertainty. Days which ended in nights like this one, when he mourned a daughter he had never known and awaited word on whether a colleague would live or die.</p><p>Randall Brown did not want to be here right now. There was nothing he could do but clear up his ransacked office and reorder his own mind. The latter was near enough impossible here.</p><p>He longed to be far north of London, where trees held worlds and centuries in their branches and the iced puddles cracked underfoot. If he were a particular sort of person – more like Hector than himself, perhaps – he would up and leave now. Tell the powers above him that he was taking a week’s leave, end of conversation.</p><p>That, unfortunately, was not in his nature.</p><p>Quiet but disordered, he left his office for the silent corridors, in search of someone who did know his nature. There were very few. She would be slouching, exhausted, within reach of a phone, if he knew her at all.</p><p>And he did know her.</p><p>Lix Storm sat in her office. Staring at, or maybe through, the telephone, she unsurprisingly held a glass of whisky in one hand. That she lingered in this way concerned Randall enormously, for she generally preferred to stay busy. She hated to stand still. Probably why she drank her emotions into submission, he noted.</p><p>A ghost seemed to flit across her face when she looked up at him. “Randall,” she said, clearing her throat. “Any news?”</p><p>“None. Still in surgery, as far as I’m aware.”</p><p>He wandered across her office, aiming for nowhere.</p><p>“I don’t think I can do this,” she said out of the blue. Randall looked at her. She was shaken. Lix Storm was seldom shaken. “I think I might have a limit to how much misery I can bear at any one time.”</p><p>Randall came to stand next to her. What could he do to alleviate her pain? Almost nothing. He cautiously offered up his hand to her; Lix took it, but it seemed so insignificant. What good did it do for her once this moment had passed?</p><p>“It never seems to end,” murmured Lix.</p><p>To see this woman reflect upon the state of her own small world rang alarm bells for him. Why wasn’t she diving into the perils of a world unknown? That was what she usually did with her heartache.</p><p>The spectre of what once would have been a smile played on her lips. She took a sip of whisky and said, “I’m sorry. I’m wallowing.”</p><p>For once, Randall did not know what to say to her. Defiance, sadness, stubbornness, anger, even bitterness…he could deal with those from Lix. He knew what they looked like. This was something new. All he could say was, “You don’t need to be sorry.”</p><p>He looked at his watch. It was well after three in the morning. He almost suggested that they go home and wait it out in comfort but quickly realised it would be both stupid and pointless. Lix was comfortable here. This was her sanctuary. The fact that Freddie had been attacked and then dumped on these grounds violated that. Perhaps that had contributed to her current state.</p><p>Lix squeezed his hand. “I’m alright, Randall,” she said. “I was just being…”</p><p>Randall met her eyes. “Not alright?”</p><p>The shrill ring of the telephone startled them both. Lix dived forwards and grabbed the receiver. “Hello?”</p><p>Randall tried to read her face but it was no good. She had fixed it with all the resolve she possessed until she knew what she was facing. He tried to listen to Bel on the other end of the phone; he could make out enough to know it was her voice, but not what it was she said.</p><p>“Thank you, Bel. Do you need anything?” Randall watched Lix listen, intently trying to figure out what news she had just been given. “Alright. No, that’s fine, I can get that to you. You’re welcome. Bye.”</p><p>Lix carefully placed the phone back on its hook. “Freddie has survived surgery,” she said quietly. “It’s now a matter of watching and waiting.” She drained her glass. “The doctors are cautiously optimistic, though.”</p><p>“What was it Bel needed?”</p><p>“Washbag and a change of clothes. She has a spare key in her desk drawer.”</p><p>Relieved to finally have something to do, Randall immediately said, “Come on, I’ll drive.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p>
<hr/><p>Hospitals always smelled so toxic to Randall. Ironic, actually, since that smell came from that which killed toxins. Maybe he just associated it with death. The thought was more toxic than the smell. He had wanted to stay in the car, but Lix had insisted that he would not be intruding if he accompanied her.</p><p>He had wondered if she had simply not wanted to go alone, and then remembered that Lix Storm revelled in all she did alone.</p><p>They found Bel Rowley sitting on a chair in a corridor. Her usually perfect hair was in a mess and she was smeared with blood, but otherwise appeared to be coping. “How is he?” asked Lix.</p><p>“He’s not out of danger,” Bel answered. Randall heard her weariness seep into her words. “The surgeon said he managed to repair the internal damage, though. His biggest risk now is infection.” She took her clothes and washbag from Lix. “Thank you.”</p><p>Lix reached up and patted Bel’s cheek affectionately. Randall, who truly did feel he was intruding upon them now, said, “I’ll see you in the car,” to Lix. He turned away, but turned back to Bel. “I know it is little consolation for the suffering Mr. Lyons has endured, but you both did an excellent job, Ms. Rowley.”</p><p>Bel, though obviously a little taken aback, gave him a grateful nod.</p><p>Randall left.</p><p>He got to the car just in time. The drizzle he had felt beginning as he had retrieved Bel’s belongings from the vehicle earlier turned into a downpour just when he opened the driver’s side door.</p><p>Listening to the rain batter the windscreen, Randall pondered his reasons for leaving. He supposed Lix had known Bel long before he had, and so it was to be expected that they would share a bond. He had merely been an unwelcome spectator to their vulnerability. However, he questioned how much Lix could give. She had grief of her own. Grief shared by only him and her. Nobody else knew anything of it, and he knew she would pretend everything was fine in front of them all.</p><p>Even she could not keep that up forever. Not when she had admitted to him that she was at her limit. He believed she really was at that limit but overstepped it for her friends.</p><p>Only a few minutes had passed when he spotted Lix leaving the hospital. He was getting ready to start the engine, but hesitated. Lix had stopped walking. In the middle of her path to the car, she had just stopped. She was too far away for him to see her face. That did not stop him from feeling her stare upon him.</p><p>She was not alright. Most definitely not alright.</p><p>The only thing he could do was go to her, for she could not come to him. He jogged through sheets of rain to her. “Lix,” he said breathlessly. “What is it? Is it Freddie?”</p><p>She shook her head. “No,” she replied. He could hear her gulp as she spoke. “He’s as he was when you left.” She pushed her wringing wet hair back from her face. “It’s too much.” She paused for a moment; Randall chose not to interrupt her. “No, actually, it isn’t too much. We’ve all dealt with more. It’s too <em>close</em>. Freddie, Sofia, you. It’s too close and I can’t stand it, Randall. I just can’t.” Her voice grew more frantic with every word that fell from her mouth. “I’ve made sure I’ve been left well enough alone for all these years and now all this-”</p><p>Lix could not finish what she wanted to say. That surge that had been rising up in her since this evening had hit a dam of impregnable brick, and it was all being backwashed to whence it came. And that caused problems of its own. She swallowed and she breathed and her composure broke in spite of her. He knew that when he saw her hands tremble.</p><p>Randall did what she would have done for him. He pulled her close, unbothered by the rain pounding down on them.</p><p>“I can’t take it.”</p><p>He gently rubbed her back. “You’re going to go home, Lix, and you’re going to get some sleep. When you get up, pack a bag and come to the office. We’re going away. Away from all of this, even if just for a while.”</p><p>Lix broke away and gazed up at him, clearly astonished. “But the programme-”</p><p>“We are not lone soldiers. There are others who work on it, too. Given what’s happened to Freddie, they might well cancel this week’s programme anyway.”</p><p>She was uncertain. “Where?”</p><p>“North,” he said. “I have a house near Tomintoul. Nothing grand, but it’s comfortable.”</p><p>“I don’t even know where that is.” He looked sternly at her. She almost smiled. “Let’s get out of the rain. We must resemble sewer rats by now.”</p><p>It was only as he closed the passenger door on her that he realised something: the things he would not do for himself, he would do for Lix Storm.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. In the Darkness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had considered driving. However, it was such a long journey, and the roads could be unpleasant at the best of times. He woke at noon – extremely late for him – and was still tired. It was then he decided to stop at Euston station on his way to the office. Tonight’s train stopped at Grantown-on-Spey in the morning. He had a friend, well, more of an acquaintance, but someone who would meet him with his car at the station. The car he kept in lockup for when he could not face the drive north.</p><p>Randall, once in his office, called the man. “Hello?” he heard a thick Highland accent answer.</p><p>“Hello, Johnnie. It’s Randall Brown.”</p><p>“Ah, it’s yourself! And how the Devil are you?” Johnnie asked, his tone jovial.</p><p>Randall winced internally; it was a question he could not bring himself to even begin to answer. “Could you do me a favour, please, Johnnie?”</p><p>“Need your car?”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>“When?”</p><p>“Tomorrow morning, Grantown West.”</p><p>“What time?”</p><p>“About eight.”</p><p>“I’ll be there!” he assured him.</p><p>“I apologise for the short notice.”</p><p>“No need, Randall.”</p><p>“Thank you, Johnnie. I’ll see you in the morning.”</p><p>“See you then!”</p><p>He put the phone down. He didn’t want to have to do this. There was so much he wished to never confront, and to be alone with Lix Storm would be dangerously close to leaving him with no choice. Lix needed this, though. She needed to be away from here, in a place where she could do and live and exist without the confines of having to hide herself. Where she didn’t have to stand still for fear of what might show when she eventually moved.</p><p>It terrified him. If he knew her that well, he was sure she knew him too. Being known again, after all this time, it was frightening.</p><p>The next call was to the man above him. He had expected to be read the riot act; on the contrary, he was informed that the programme was to be pulled this week and that he and Lix Storm may take the leave they need. It rather threw him that he had not needed to fight for it.</p><p>The final call was to Bel, to give her the telephone number for the house, in case she needed him, or if there was any change in Freddie’s condition.</p><p>He did little to nothing in the hours that followed. There was not the necessary space in his mind to get anything done. Instead, his mind drifted from one face to the next, to one he had only ever seen in a photograph.</p><p>Everything they put at risk in the name of truth and public interest, and it got them nowhere. Of course, he had to shoulder his share of the blame. Indeed, if he had not left Lix, Sofia may still have been here today. That house to which they were headed had belonged to his parents before him; the baby could have been moved to one of the remotest parts of these islands, never to have been touched by a bomb.</p><p>That thought was one he had harboured since he had first known his child’s fate. His fault. All his fault. Lix may never have been faced with the choice of giving her up had he not left. They might have got married, kept Sofia, moved to Scotland and waited the war out in safety. Even if they had not moved there, if they had needed to keep working, Sofia could have been safe in the care of someone they knew, far away from the bombs and the brutality.</p><p>She might have started school there. She might have come to London after the war, and developed a muddled Anglo-Scots accent. He liked to think she looked like her mother, but more so that she would have inherited Lix’s quirks over his own. Except perhaps the alcoholism.</p><p>None of it was of any consequence, though. Nothing he could do now would change anything he did then. It was all cemented into history.</p><p>Lix showed up at around three, suitcase in hand. She was pale and looked like she had barely slept. “I got us tickets for the sleeper,” said Randall. “We should be at Euston for six forty-five this evening.”</p><p>She nodded her head.</p><p>“I had to tell a small lie,” he admitted, “similar to the one I told the French.”</p><p>“Or else we wouldn’t have been able to share a berth,” she said, cottoning on to what he was saying. “That’s fine.” She spoke dismissively, as though what he said was of no importance to her.</p><p>“I still need to pack. I must admit I have been procrastinating.”</p><p>Lix picked her case up. “Come on then,” she said. “Unless you have magic elves who will immaculately pack your case to your standards.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Randall and Alexis Brown.” Randall showed the tickets to a conductor, who scored their names off a list, and told them their berth number.</p><p>“Dear Lord, what am I doing?” he heard Lix mutter to herself.</p><p>Randall took her case from her when they reached their berth. “There’s still time to disembark if you don’t want to go,” he reassured her. He did not want her to feel forced into going anywhere, even if he was almost certain it would do her good to leave this city behind for a few days.</p><p>Lix took her case back and stowed it up into the luggage rack. “I’m going with you, Randall,” Lix told him sternly. “It’s just that I’m not accustomed to getting on a train and fleeing to the Scottish hills.”</p><p>“If you’re happy-” he began, but he cut himself off when he realised what he was saying. Of course she was not happy. Neither of them were happy. That was the reason for this trip, after all. There was no need to correct himself with Lix. It was one of the many brilliant things about that woman – she could accept a silent correction of behaviour.</p><p>She reached up and stroked his face. He almost did something extremely reckless when he caught himself leaning closer to her. “We should reserve a table for dinner,” she said.</p><p>And so they did. They sat down in the restaurant carriage and ate a perfectly decent meal. Lix drank. Randall did not. Lix drank rather a lot in a short space of time, in fact; that she held that perfectly well only told Randall of the extent of the habit she had developed during these past two decades. Most people would have been floored by what that woman drank. But it lifted her spirits, if only artificially, just enough for her to tease him mercilessly for removing every leaf of spinach from his plate.</p><p>“It doesn’t bite, you know. You could just push it to the side like every other civilised adult.”</p><p>He gave her a soft glare. “Do <em>you</em> want it?”</p><p>She laughed. “Oh, God, no, darling!”</p><p>Lix had consumed just enough alcohol to let that one slip through her net. It had been such a long time since she had called him that. She used it with everyone else, of course, but she was at ease with them. He could hardly be surprised, though, could he? Not when he had shown up as he did.</p><p>The drink did finally show its effect when Lix stood up and tried to walk back to their berth. It seemed that while she could manage just fine on solid ground, a moving locomotive was an entirely different story. She stumbled after only a few steps; Randall lunged forward to catch her before she fell. She let out a chuckle. “Sorry!”</p><p>Shaking his head, he guided her gently back to the safety on the berth; at least if she fell here, there was only so far down a woman of her height could fall before finding an obstacle.</p><p>“I’m having second thoughts about taking you where you’ll be surrounded by distilleries,” he grumbled in her ear as he closed the door over. It made her laugh. He pulled the cord to turn on the lamp and when he turned back to her, her face had changed.</p><p>“Why am I laughing?”</p><p>“Well, I believe it’s Glenfiddich they serve on these trains.”</p><p>There would be little point in trying to get anything sensible out of her this evening. It was probably better just to be near rather than try and force a conversation neither one of them was fit to hold. Randall stripped down to his vest and boxers and climbed up to his bunk. In the time it had taken him to neatly fold and store his clothes, Lix had made no progress of her own. He watched helplessly as she struggled to get her shoes off and scrambled up onto her side.</p><p>Darkness flooded them when he switched the lamp off. How long he lay there in silence, he was unsure. He had thought Lix had drifted to sleep until she murmured to him, “Scotland had better not be too cold. Or wet.”</p><p>At that, Randall could not help but shake his head. “Today’s rain is tomorrow’s whisky, Ms. Storm.”</p><p>“Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s alright, then.” He could hear her move in her bunk, pulling at her cover. “Randall?” she asked.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>He looked around when she did not speak. In the darkness, he could make out her outstretched arm, reaching across what little space lay between them. With a small sigh, he found her hand in the emptiness of the night and took it carefully into his.</p><p>It was like this that he fell asleep.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Jessie and Sadie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>“Next stop, Kingussie!” Randall was woken by the conductor calling through the carriage. “Five minutes to Kingussie!”</p><p>He groaned to himself. In the dim light of the compartment, he saw Lix was still asleep. He got up and climbed off his bunk; he reached up and gently shook her arm. She startled awake. “We need to get up now,” he told her quietly. “Our stop is less than an hour away.”</p><p>“Oh, my head,” she moaned.</p><p>“You drank your weight in whisky in a couple of hours last night, Lix,” he informed her. “The headache is your payment.”</p><p>She pulled a face at him but allowed him a tiny smile. Randall realised he had not taken his hand from her arm but did not hasten to move it. She was warm. He missed warmth. She sat up, though, which left him no choice.</p><p>Randall turned and changed as far up as the waist and a vest, choosing not to put a shirt on until he had shaved and brushed his teeth. When he looked back at Lix, she had stripped off her blouse and trousers and was rubbing her hands over her face. “I’m just going to get washed,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”</p><p>Lix nodded and dropped off the bunk.</p><p>Shaving aboard a moving train was a perilous task, but he could not bear to break that part of his morning. When he cut his jaw as the train pulled into Kingussie station, however, he almost wished he’d left his face alone. In the mirror, he saw a man who looked a decade older than he did two days ago. Or maybe he just felt it. Worn out, broken by this world and all its disaster.</p><p>If he said as much, he knew he would be perceived as weak. It did not help that nobody knew what he and Lix had just endured; even if they did, most would have no idea of the gaping wound it left them both to carry.</p><p>He had failed to entertain the possibility that Sofia had not survived the war. He had always thought of her as alive. Tall, like her parents, with bright blue eyes and her mother’s sharp tongue. It had not occurred to him that she had not lived.</p><p>Back in the berth, he found Lix buttoning her fresh blouse. She dug out her washbag and headed for the door without speaking. Randall could not quite tell if she was just hungover or if something of greater concern bothered her. Well, something that he did not already know about. Her laughter last night had turned off like a tap. Indeed, he wondered how much of that good humour was true and how much was simply a drunken mask.</p><p>“Aviemore!” the conductor called through the corridor. “Five minutes to Aviemore, ladies and gentleman!”</p><p>With his shirt and tie on, Randall packed his belongings back into his case, laying aside his suit jacket, coat and hat.</p><p>It barely surprised him that Lix reappeared just as the train left Aviemore. She never had taken as long as him to get ready. He suspected it was because she was not as ritualistic about it as he was, but she had never complained about waiting for him. Not in all the years they’d known one another. He did not think for a minute that it never got on her nerves – he knew her too well to believe that – but she never complained.</p><p>“Next station is ours,” he told her.</p><p>“Right,” Lix said. She sounded a little brighter, almost as if she had given herself a talking to in the bathrooms. “Let me just put my things away and we’ll wait in the seated carriage, shall we?”</p><p>And so they did. They found a vacant compartment and sat down; most of the time was spent gazing out of the windows at the white mountains and the thinner layer of snow that covered the untouched countryside. “It <em>is</em> beautiful,” Lix said. Randall looked around at her. “All this snow. And the hills. It’s easy to forget what hills look like if you spend long enough in London.”</p><p>“I thought you objected to the cold?”</p><p>“It may be worth the frostbite.”</p><p>She smiled. It was a muddy smile, with everything still hidden beneath threatening to spill out, but it was also a real one. Simple amusement and friendship were the foundations they had to build upon.</p><p>“You talk like I’m taking you to the Arctic Circle.”</p><p>“That would make you the rugged, handsome explorer, would it?” He took it on the chin, glad to see her able to tease him without the majority of a bottle of single malt behind her. “And who am I in this story?”</p><p>“The mighty polar bear, waiting to eat any man she spots, one limb at a time.”</p><p>She bared her teeth at him playfully, the spirit of his Lix glowing through a haze of sadness.</p><p>“Five minutes to Grantown-on-Spey!” shouted the conductor. “Next station, Grantown-on-Spey!”</p><p>And five minutes later, they stood on the northbound platform of Grantown-on-Spey West station. Randall inhaled the cold Highland air and saw Johnnie near the platform bridge, waving Randall’s car keys. Lix at his side, he made his way over, realising suddenly that Johnnie was not alone. His daughter and what appeared to be every one of his young grandchildren were with him. His throat clenched. He placed his suitcase down to one side, near a planter, realising he would not get out of a conversation. Lix did the same.</p><p>“Randall Brown, the man himself!” Johnnie greeted him, shaking his hand. He held a girl of around eight or nine months in his left arm. He looked at Lix. “And you’ve brought a friend!” he added, offering his hand to Lix too. “Johnnie MacRae, my dear. This is my daughter, Cathy, and my grandchildren.”</p><p>Cathy, who looked to be about six months pregnant, reached out and shook Lix’s hand. She also held a baby girl of around nine months in her left arm; Randall thought they must be twins. “Don’t worry, they’re not all mine!” Cathy said, nodding down to the children.</p><p>“Lix Storm,” she introduced herself. “Randall here thought I needed a break from London. He thought the alternative might be to die from hypothermia.”</p><p>Cathy laughed. Johnnie handed Randall his car keys.</p><p>The whistle blew and the train pulled noisily away from the station. The baby girls started to cry, startled by the sudden din. Randall looked around and counted nine children, including the babies, who looked to all be under the age of ten. Five of them were running around boisterously, two keeping close to Cathy and Johnnie. And then he noticed the many suitcases. “We’re returning them to my sister down in Perth,” Cathy answered the question he had not yet asked. “Mine wanted to come for the excitement of the train. My husband is working and my mother is minding the shop, so we’ve got our hands full!”</p><p>The babies settled a little.</p><p>“We’d better get over to the right platform,” Johnnie said, looking at his watch. “The train will be here soon.”</p><p>One of the boys, about two years old, tripped over one of the many suitcases. He fell and immediately started crying. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Geordie!” Cathy exclaimed. She turned to Lix. “Could you take Sadie, just for a moment?”</p><p>And before either of them knew what was happening, Lix suddenly had a baby in her arms and Cathy was stalking over to little Geordie. She stared at the child. Randall tried to apologise for the situation without speaking when she looked at him.</p><p>“Randall, would you take Jessie, just ‘til I get this lot over to the platform? Just a few minutes?”</p><p>Randall, though he did not want to, nodded and took the baby. Johnnie rounded the children up, tasking the older ones with taking some of the smaller cases, and began their hike up the bridge steps. Cathy returned carrying a still sobbing Geordie. “Thank you,” she said, though she did so apologetically.</p><p>He looked over to Lix. She still gazed into Sadie’s face like she was both the most beautiful but most haunting thing she had ever seen. He put a hand on her arm and indicated to the bridge; they began to follow the family slowly towards the steps.</p><p>Suddenly, a train clattered through the station at high speed. Cathy, who was now at the top with Geordie, did not hear Jessie and Sadie wail. “Ssshh,” he whispered to Jessie. “You’re alright. Just a train.”</p><p>Lix, whose hand was cradling Sadie’s head, glanced at Randall, obviously alarmed. She was in no frame of mind for this. The combination of the noise and the unfamiliarity of the adults caused Jessie and Sadie to continue their crying, and caught in with the other seven children on the other platform, Johnnie and Cathy did not see them.</p><p>There was only one thing for it. Randall leaned his face closer to Jessie. “Ally bally, ally bally bee,” he sang gently to her, “sittin’ on your mammy’s knee, greetin’ for a wee bawbee, to buy some Coulter’s candy.” It was working. Jessie, interested in this new voice, hushed. Lix stepped closer with Sadie, who was also staring at Randall; their faces were so close that an onlooker might presume them to be ready to kiss. “Poor wee Jeanie’s gettin’ awfy thin, a rickle’ o’ bones covered ower wi’ skin, noo she’s gettin’ a wee double chin, wi’ sookin’ Coulter’s candy.” Baby Jessie reached up to touch Randall’s cheek, seemingly now happier with her lot. “Ally bally, ally bally bee, sittin’ on your mammy’s knee, greetin’ for a wee bawbee, to buy some Coulter’s candy.”</p><p>Sadie giggled. Lix lifted her gaze from the child to Randall. “Crisis averted. Well done.”</p><p>“Are you alright?” he asked her, for he was sure that if he felt this pang of grief, Lix would feel it tenfold.</p><p>She did not tell him. “Let’s get these two little ones where they need to be, shall we?”</p><p>And just like that, she turned and climbed to the top of the bridge, leaving Randall to follow in her wake. By the time he caught up with her, she was already passing Sadie back to Cathy. Randall gave Jessie to Johnnie. “Thanks,” Johnnie said.</p><p>“Do you need us to stay and help with your luggage?” Randall offered, since it was the polite thing to do.</p><p>“No, no,” Johnnie said. “The conductor always gives us a hand.”</p><p>“Right then. Well, Lix and I had best be getting away. Thank you for dropping the car off.”</p><p>“Not a problem, my friend,” Johnnie said sincerely. “And thank you for helping with this unruly lot.”</p><p>Randall nodded, shook his hand again, and left them. He picked up their luggage from beside the plant pot and did not stop walking until he reached the car, sure that Lix would follow him without question. With the cases in the boot and his companion in the passenger seat, he set off for the house, taking the road out of the town and into the countryside.</p><p>Lix, who had said nothing, turned the radio on and looked out of her window. Randall glanced at her after he turned out of Tomintoul, after hearing what sounded horribly like a sob. He could not see her face. Because he did not want to force her to talk, he reached out and rubbed her leg for just a moment. She traced the back of his hand with her fingers in those few seconds.</p><p>He felt that lump forming in his own throat. He swallowed it back; for now, he had to drive.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ready</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing Lix did once she had left her case in her room was head for the drink cabinet in the sitting room.</p><p>Quietly, Randall followed her. He had expected this. However, she was about to get an unpleasant surprise. The only thing in that cabinet was – “Glasses,” Lix said. “You have glasses but nothing to drink.”</p><p>“I don’t drink anymore,” he reminded her. “There’s no reason for me to have alcohol in the house.”</p><p>Lix, doing nothing to hide her irritation, threw herself down onto the couch. Randall went over and sat down next to her. He had anticipated that she might get up, moodily declare she was going to unpack, but she did not. She stared out of the window at the trees on the other side of the lawn, their branches bowing with the weight of the snow upon them. There was a weak sun shining outside, and it made the snow glitter in its wake.</p><p>“I wasn’t ready,” she said.</p><p>Randall did not need to ask what she was referring to; he had seen it in her face from the moment Cathy had thrust Sadie into Lix’s arms.</p><p>She turned to look him in the face.</p><p>“There are things we might never be ready for.”</p><p>“Children won’t cease to exist for my benefit. I need to get a grip on myself.”</p><p>“I think you know it isn’t even nearly that simple,” he said, keeping his voice soft but making sure she knew he meant it. “You’re being too hard on yourself. Why must you always do that?”</p><p>“You don’t want to see what happens when I don’t,” she answered.</p><p>Randall bit his tongue. He almost told her that, actually, he did want to see that. That he wanted to know her at her worst, not only her best. It was something she had always kept well hidden from him; she guarded herself with a quick wit and no-nonsense demeanour, and never let anyone see quite deep enough to know what she screamed underneath.</p><p>She was tired. He could see it in her. Maybe not so much physically, but there was a light in her eyes that had faded. Lix slowly leaned forwards, putting her face into Randall’s neck. She was hiding her face from him. Choosing not to challenge her on it, he put his hand on the back of her head.</p><p>“I wasn’t ready,” she murmured again. He thought he could feel her breathing start to lose its rhythm.</p><p>He lowered his head so his cheek rested against hers. “You’re allowed to be upset by what happened earlier, Lix. Don’t crucify yourself over it.”</p><p>He would have kissed her cheek had he thought she might accept it. Anything to give her a message that she was loved. But when she was like this, she would not accept what she did not deem herself worthy of. That was something Randall had learned about her very early on. She would let him comfort her, but she would not allow him to love her.</p><p>It was difficult to know what to say; though he felt the pain himself and he was generally very good with his words, there was no way he knew to express to her that he was right there with her on the same ground. At the same grave.</p><p>Lix’s hand found his face, holding him close to her like he might vanish into the void.</p><p>“Promise me something,” she whispered, barely audible to him.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Promise you’ll never give up on me.”</p><p>A moment of this kind of stark vulnerability from Lix Storm was so rare that Randall knew to take it seriously. He gently moved her so that he could see her face. The reason she had hidden herself was plain for him to see: she had been fighting not to weep. “I am never going to give up on you,” he said earnestly. “Never.”</p>
<hr/><p>In the afternoon, once they were unpacked and calmed down, Randall realised they had nothing at all in the way of food. He had forgotten all about it; really, he ought to have stopped in Grantown or Tomintoul and got some essentials but in his haste to get to the relative safety of these walls, it had slipped his mind.</p><p>He sat down with a pad and pen and made a list, systematically from tins to fruit to soap.</p><p>“I’m going to have to go out for some provisions,” he said to Lix. Finally, she seemed less distressed, and was curled up in the corner of the couch with a book.</p><p>She made to get up and said, “Let me just get my shoes and coat.”</p><p>“You don’t have to come with me,” he said quickly. Lix frowned, and he immediately worried that he had offended her. “I don’t mean that…I would like…” he tried to correct himself. Her face moved from what he now realised was confusion to amusement at his flustering. “I just don’t want you to feel you must come with me if you’d rather not.”</p><p>“If I didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t.”</p><p>In his head, Randall knew that. Maybe he was just being stupidly cautious.</p><p>Lix left. Randall got his own coat and hat, found a jute bag, and got his car keys. As always, Lix was standing at the door before he got there.</p><p>The drive to the village was quiet. He hated it. It was wrong for Lix to be so reserved, to refrain from her brutal honesty and her inappropriate comments. But what exactly had he expected? He had asked her to dig, only to find a dead body. It was only when he drove past the school in Tomintoul that he saw the probability that she hated him for that. She had said she had wanted to leave it alone. To leave Sofia alone. He had insisted, always in the knowledge that even she would not be able to have her head’s caution restrict how much her heart longed for her child. Indeed, he had manipulated that.</p><p>He parked outside the village shop.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said.</p><p>“What on Earth for?” she asked. She looked straight at him.</p><p>“Opening the box of horrors.”</p><p>She got out of the car. He followed, unsure of what it was about his apology that had induced her to leave him behind. In the shop, he gave Elspeth Morrison his list, and she set about filling it for him. Lix looked around her, taking in the items available here that were less easily available in London: Irn Bru, certain sweets, and a large range of whiskies.</p><p>“What do those taste like?” she asked, pointing up at a box of Lee’s macaroon bars. There was a brittleness and a harshness in her voice that Randall could not place.</p><p>“It’s sugar and potatoes.” Lix looked around at him in disgust. “Well, no, those ones aren’t. Those ones are sugar fondant, coated in chocolate and coconut. When my mother made it at home, she used the leftover potatoes.”</p><p>Elspeth reappeared in front of him. “Here we are, Mr. Brown. I’ll pass your slips on to Grant and Hughie first thing, and I’ll leave a note for Duncan to go up to you with milk.”</p><p>“Thank you, Elspeth.”</p><p>Randall paid and headed for the door.</p><p>He stopped when he heard Lix say to Elspeth, “Could I have a macaroon, a bag of tablet, and a bottle of Glenlivet, please?”</p><p>“Of course,” said Elspeth. When he turned back, Lix was paying her.</p><p>Lix wore a false smile when she joined him at the door. Why hadn’t he anticipated that she would buy alcohol? Of course she was going to buy it. She needed it. He wondered now if she knew how to be sober. Or was it that she didn’t know how to survive with a sober mind?</p><p>To say anything to her about it now would do no good. There was a moment when he was going to say it, but he had to choose it carefully.</p><p>The atmosphere grew tense between them when they got back to the house. Lix drank. Randall read. At about six o’clock, he got up to cook. She continued to drink.</p><p>She barely spoke. When she did, it was cutting. Though what she said would have been polite enough on its own – comments about what he read, asking what he was cooking, saying she was going to put coal on the fire – her tone of voice was hard. Contemptuous, like she hated him. The more she drank, the harsher she sounded, but the wider her smile became. Lix Storm suddenly seemed quite deranged. She had always been many difficult things, but deranged had never been one of them.</p><p>When she declared she was going for a walk after darkness fell, Randall had to intervene. It was cold, dark, and she was in an unfamiliar place, not to mention how much she’d had to drink. “Don’t,” he said. “It’s too cold. It’s icy out there. You might fall.”</p><p>“I can get back up.”</p><p>“Lix, please.”</p><p>She glared at him. There was no way for her to disguise that she was furious with him.</p><p>“What has got into you?” he asked.</p><p>She turned away and went towards the front door; Randall beat her to it and placed himself between Lix and the wild country on the other side of that door.</p><p>“Move.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Randall, move!” Lix tried to force him from her path but he stood fast. “Get out of my way!” she shouted.</p><p>“You’re drunk. You’re angry. You’re not going out there like this.” She looked like she sorely wished to slap him. “Why are you so livid?”</p><p>Lix’s eyes moved over his face, though he could not know what she searched for. “Box of horrors,” she answered him, her voice accusing him of something.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“Our daughter was not a ‘box of horrors’, Randall!” she snarled furiously.</p><p>He could have kicked himself. He had said that in the car. “I didn’t mean <em>she</em> was the box of horrors!” he said. “I only meant the hurt caused by discovering that she died.”</p><p>But she knew that. Lix was an intelligent woman. She knew what he had meant. And that meant she wanted to be angry.</p><p>Accepting that he would not let her leave in this condition, she stalked away to her room. He returned to the sitting room. Everything was in a mess. He put the books back on their shelves. He straightened the squint folds in the curtains. He rearranged the cushions to their rightful place on the sofa.</p><p>It was all still a mess.</p><p>Lix came into the room and put her hands on the whisky bottle she had left on the cabinet. Randall went to her and attempted to take it from her, but she fought him. “You cannot drink like this,” he told her.</p><p>“I’m a big girl, Randall. I can do what I want.”</p><p>“You’re grieving. If you drink like this while grieving, you will <em>never</em> come to terms with anything. Not really. All you’ll do is learn how much you need to drink to make the grief numb for a while.”</p><p>Lix laughed. It was horrible. There was nothing in the sound but rage and pain. She tried to wrestle the bottle from his hands. “Why won’t you leave me alone?!”</p><p>He wanted to shout in her face that he loved her, that he could not let her break like this because he loved her too much, but the words never made it through his filter. His instinct told him to look at her. Just keep looking at her, until she looked back. She did. Her eyes locked onto his. He had broken down over this already. It had not been a mere cry; it had been a full-scale meltdown, and he knew it. Lix had not done that.</p><p>“Don’t do this to me,” she said to him. “Please.”</p><p>“You are not angry.”</p><p>“Don’t, Randall.”</p><p>“That anger is just a diversion from something much worse. I know that because I know you, Lix. You can control your anger. You’re not controlling it because you know what’s waiting for you when you get over the anger. Your only child is dead. You’re a bereaved mother, and you’re trying not to be.”</p><p>Her hands relinquished their grip on the bottle. Randall put it back into the cabinet, out of sight, for he knew when he turned his back on her, that howl she had been holding back all evening would finally fill the room. He went back to her just in time to see her knees give way, and caught her in his arms.</p><p><em>Promise you’ll never give up on me</em>.</p><p>Those words echoed in the ghostly wail that broke through his heart like a rusted knife.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Smoke</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Smoke seeped under the door.</p>
<p>Randall didn’t notice it at first. It tainted the air but when breathing was already work, a bit of smoke made little difference. He saw from his bed the glow of fire on the other side of the door, which stood ajar. What was the point of running? Better to let fire take him before anything else could destroy him – at least fire might be a quick end.</p>
<p>And then he remembered.</p>
<p>He was not alone in this house.</p>
<p>He ran. Through smoke and flames, he ran to her bedroom door and tried to open it, but it was locked. He tried to shoulder it in but it did not even rattle. Was she still drunk? Was she passed out in bed, unaware of the flames circling around her?</p>
<p>“Lix!” he called. “We need to get out of here!”</p>
<p>She moved on the other side of the door; he could hear her. “I can’t get out!” she shouted. “The door won’t budge!”</p>
<p>“Try the window!”</p>
<p>When he heard her go, he went to the front door. It too was locked. The lock could not be turned. The door could not be moved. They were stuck. Trapped like the universe needed them to die together, unable to see one another. “The window isn’t going to open!” Lix called. She coughed. He went back to her room; when he put his hand on her door, he could feel the heat from the other side.</p>
<p>He sat down with his back against the hot wood. “I’m sorry,” he said.</p>
<p>“It isn’t your fault.”</p>
<p>She coughed again; he could feel her stumble into the door. “I love you,” he said. They were about to die. He could not have her die without knowing how she was loved.</p>
<p>There was no answer. Somehow he knew, just knew, that she had fallen unconscious. She was breathing in smoke and ash and fire without a fight. She was as good as dead. “Lix!” he shouted. If he called her name loud enough, surely she might stir. He slammed his hand against the door, hoping to jolt her awake. “Lix!”</p>
<p>Quite calmly, she spoke his name. “Randall,” she said. The sound came not from behind this door, but from his side. He looked around him.</p>
<p>The fire was gone. It was early morning, the first haze of sun glowing through the curtains. Lix Storm leaned over him, kneeling on his bed in her nightdress, her hair a little wild and her eyes fixed upon him. He looked down to his hand; it was held between both of hers. “You’re safe,” she told him. “It was just a nightmare.”</p>
<p>Even though he could see her, hear her, feel her hands on his, he still needed to be sure. He reached up and let his hand fall onto her neck, his thumb on her jaw. He shuffled upright to sit at her height. She was definitely here. So close he could hear her breathe; he thought he heard the last of a rush of adrenaline leave her lungs.</p>
<p>They hovered. Suspended between what they knew and what they loved, they lingered, their noses touching.</p>
<p>And Randall remembered what he was doing. The damage he might do to her if he forced an issue she could not broach right now. “I need to go to the village,” he said to her, though he did not immediately move. “Elspeth handed in orders to the butcher and the baker for me.”</p>
<p>She smiled. “I heard the milkman an hour ago. I took it in before it could freeze.”</p>
<p>“Thank you.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>The day passed calmly. More calmly than yesterday, at the very least. When he returned from Tomintoul, Lix told him that Bel had called, just to say that Freddie was improving well and that all was not falling apart in London. If only Bel knew what was falling apart up here.</p>
<p>Lix still drank, but not to the excess that had caused her senses to leave her before. She was more like her normal self; it was a relief to see it, even if Randall knew it was temporary.</p>
<p>“Is there a pub here?” Lix asked that evening.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he said. “About a mile from here.”</p>
<p>“We should go,” she said firmly. “Go and do what we would normally do. Be normal. Our lives haven’t ended.”</p>
<p>Cautious, Randall considered it. She might be right. They could not remember how to function with normality if they did not do normal things and, though he might not like it, going to a pub was normal for Lix. It was normal for him, too, though he didn’t drink anything stronger than lemonade. He got to his feet and pulled on his coat. Lix copied.</p>
<p>And he instantly regretted going. The moment he walked into the pub, he regretted it. Alastair Lawson was there. Already half-cut, he stared at Lix as they entered the room and ordered their drinks. Alastair was a forester. He knew these hills and their trees like nobody else, but he was also reckless and womanising. There was a reason women avoided him and fathers kept their daughters away from him. The man was charming, though, and there was no way to get the message to Lix to stay away. Randall knew she might not heed him even if he did.</p>
<p>There was a trad band setting up, and he remembered that the pub had enough space to be cleared for dancing, as it often was when they had a band on.</p>
<p>It was calm enough for a while, until Lix decided that, actually, she would like to dance with Alastair Lawson. The barman said to Randall, “I’d stop her if I were you, Randall.”</p>
<p>“She’s a law unto herself,” Randall sighed. “Try and stop her, she would continue to spite you.”</p>
<p>After last night, he was not fool enough to think she wouldn’t do exactly the opposite of what he asked her to. She might not have been in a frame of mind for sound decision making, but she was not going to let that stop her. There was every possibility that his misgivings were plain and simple jealousy, for he could not stomach the idea of Lix wanting Alastair.</p>
<p>In the end he settled at a table near her; after all, she seemed to genuinely be enjoying herself, however inappropriate the man was.</p>
<p>The travelling family who spent their summers roaming this country and their winters in an old run-down cottage up the hill came in. The youngest girl was sixteen now, Randall thought. Sandy McPhee, the head of the family, came to sit down in a vacant chair near him. “So, who’s the wummin, Brown?”</p>
<p>“A friend,” he said tersely.</p>
<p>Sandy snorted into his tankard. “Aye, that’s how you’re lookin’ at Ally Lawson like you’re plannin’ he’s murder.”</p>
<p>Randall tore his eyes from Lix and Alastair. “I am not. I’m only looking out for her. You know what Alastair is like.”</p>
<p>“Aye, well, that’s how my lassies are well warned fae him.”</p>
<p>“How is the family?”</p>
<p>“They’re fine. Well, no’ Maggie. She’s got this big idea o’ goin’ tae the cities. Told her plenty sixteen is too young but she’s no’ havin’ it. Says she’s no’ gonnae be trapped into this life. I see what she means but the cities’ll treat her no better.”</p>
<p>He looked back up for Lix, but she was gone. So was Alastair. Randall jumped to his feet.</p>
<p>Sandy asked, “What’s the matter?”</p>
<p>“They’ve gone,” he said. He rushed out the door; Sandy followed. “Where would they go?” he asked of Sandy McPhee.</p>
<p>“He tried it wi’ my Mariah one time,” said Sandy, “she said he took her the military road, towards the bridge. He’s got a bothy up there beside the forestry sheds.”</p>
<p>Randall got in his car; Sandy had just enough time to close the passenger door before he tore up the road. How could he have been so careless? Of course this was going to happen. Lix was still in a poor mindset, and she was a soft target for someone like Alastair, who thought women owed him something if they so much as had a conversation with him.</p>
<p>They were barely out of the village. Along the road, as he drove, he saw Lix and Alastair arguing. He grabbed her. She tried to wrestle him off. He pulled at her, tried to force her head forwards so as to kiss her. She pushed at him. He shook her.</p>
<p>A combination of rage at Alastair and pure fear of what he might do to Lix took Randall by the throat.</p>
<p>Randall got out just in time to hear Alastair shout, “What were ye dancin’ for then, ya hoor?”</p>
<p>He slapped her.</p>
<p>Lix did not hesitate. By the time Randall got to them, she had punched Alastair; he fell back into the bushes with a broken nose. “Are you alright?” Randall asked her.</p>
<p>“I’m fine.” Randall pressed his thumb to her burst lip. She winced but said, “It’s nothing, Randall.”</p>
<p>Guilt overcame him. He should have said something. Yes, he had been jealous, but not <em>only</em> jealous. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to her, guiding her to the car. “I knew what he was like. I should have told you.”</p>
<p>“You are not responsible for him,” Lix said firmly.</p>
<p>“Lix, I should have been watching out for you!”</p>
<p>“Oh, do shut up, Randall,” she said when she climbed into the car.</p>
<p>As Randall went to the driver’s side, he saw Sandy drag Alastair up out of the bushes by the collar. “You,” he snarled. “How many times do you need to be told, ya rat?!”</p>
<p>It gave Randall some satisfaction to know it was Sandy McPhee who got his hands on the man. Alastair was not easily intimidated, it was true, but Sandy was known for seeing red – and nobody wanted to be anywhere near him when he did.</p>
<p>Lix put her hand on his arm when he sat in the car. “You did watch out for me. You’re here, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>He stared at her in the darkness of the night. “That was a good punch, by the way.”</p>
<p>“Yes, well, I’ve always believed a woman should know how to break a man’s nose.”</p>
<p>The jumped when knuckles tapped on the driver’s side window. Sandy was there. Randall opened the door. “That’s him telt,” he said. “He’ll no’ be hasslin’ you again, anyway, missus. Mind, that’s mostly down to you makin’ he’s nose intae a million bits!” he laughed.</p>
<p>Lix leaned forwards to see Sandy from inside the car. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“Welcome,” he said gruffly. “Oh, I meant tae say before,” he added to Randall. “Mariah’s gettin’ wed the day after next. You should come up tae us.”</p>
<p>Before Randall could say anything, Lix said, “We will. Thank you.”</p>
<p>Sandy patted the roof of the car and walked away. Randall was left alone with Lix to wonder what on Earth he had been thinking, taking her up here.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Can and Do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Why did you bring me here?”</p><p>Lix asked it from his bedroom door while he began to undress for bed. Randall stopped unbuttoning his shirt. “Well, I definitely did not intend for you to break the local forester’s nose this evening,” he replied, “though I concede that it was long overdue.”</p><p>She entered the room, already dressed for bed.</p><p>“Why did you bring me here, Randall?”</p><p>There was a space of only a few inches between them; she looked into his face like he held all the answers but would not give them to her. “I brought you here because I wanted you to have the time away from work and the city to…” he said, but paused to choose his next words very carefully. “To come to terms with everything that has happened.”</p><p>“And what about you?”</p><p>“What about me?”</p><p>“What had you scared out of your wits this morning?”</p><p>“A nightmare,” he said simply. “Just as you said.”</p><p>She sat down on the bed. “You were shouting my name.”</p><p>Randall turned away; he continued to methodically change out of his clothes and into his pyjamas. “I dreamt we were in danger,” he admitted. “Not unexpected, given recent circumstances.”</p><p>He put his clothes neatly on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, avoiding her gaze as he moved; he felt her watching him. “Which one of us was in danger?”</p><p>“Both of us.”</p><p>Lix reached out a hand to him; he took it. She guided him to sit down on the bed next to her. “We’re not in danger, Randall.”</p><p>“I know that. Dreams are rarely literal.”</p><p>There was something she was not saying. It hung in the air between them. Eventually, when he looked at her, she asked him, “Can I sleep here tonight?”</p><p>“Is there something wrong with your room?”</p><p>“No,” she said. “No, I just would like to sleep here tonight. Going to bed alone last night, after being so…” She looked down at her knees. Randall squeezed her hand. “Well, I was awake when the milkman stopped. I’d like not to be alone.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you come to me last night?”</p><p>“I didn’t want to disturb you.”</p><p>“That never used to bother you.”</p><p>“I was young,” she said, “and a little less considerate. Not that I’m exceptionally considerate now.” She smiled, but it was sad. Her fingers brushed across his cheekbone. “I am sorry for my behaviour. It was unfair to force that onto you.”</p><p>That surprised him. A genuine apology from Lix Storm was a rare occurrence. There was no doubt in his mind that she really was sorry for her breakdown. But Randall did not wish her to be sorry. Not for her grief. Maybe for taking it out on him, but wasn’t that what people did? People took their pain out on those closest to them, or indeed the only person nearby. Randall happened to be the latter.</p><p>It was a fate he had once thought he could live with, just being the person nearby. It wasn’t the same as being close to her or loving her out in the open, but he had convinced himself that he could be content with loving her quietly, with it never to be returned. It was now that he fully understood why Lix was so utterly terrified to even talk of what she had buried. Randall had dug Sofia up himself before arriving in London, but not what had brought Sofia to him.</p><p>He got to his feet and headed for the door; the lump in his throat threatened to bulldoze through the dam that kept his heart contained. Before he got to the door, the first tear spilled over.</p><p>He loved her. Always had loved her. But she could not love him – who possibly could love him?</p><p>“Where are you going?”</p><p>Randall stopped. He could not speak, for she would hear the tears in his voice.</p><p>He listened to her cross the room to him. Felt her turn him on the spot. “Randall,” she said. “What has upset you like this?”</p><p>Unable to speak, he shook his head.</p><p>How could he tell her the truth? She would think him mad, to hold on to a love for twenty years. That same sad smile touched her lips again. She did not ask again. She switched on a bedside lamp and switched the light overhead off. He had expected her to become impatient, but Lix took him by the hand and guided him to bed.</p><p>They got under the covers; Lix plunged them into darkness. Randall could feel her turn onto her side, her weight shifting his, and just knew she was facing him. “One of these days, Randall Brown, you will learn that you are not indecipherable.”</p><p>He swallowed back the lump in his throat. “What do you mean by that?”</p><p>“You think I don’t see it in your eyes?” she asked him gently. “In everything you do?”</p><p>A rush of panic set through him, rising until his teeth seemed to burn. “I don’t know-”</p><p>“I heard you,” she blurted out before he could deny any knowledge. “This morning, while you were sleeping.”</p><p>This time, he genuinely did not know what she meant. Not off the top of his head. He remembered shouting her name; that was obvious, as he had been dreaming of their imminent demise. He had told her to get out. Apologised for the danger she was in. Told her he loved her.</p><p>Oh, no.</p><p>He had told her he loved her. Had he said that out loud as he slept? Had she been there to hear that?</p><p>“Of course, I knew long before this morning,” she murmured. “Something in the way you hold me. Even in the way you speak to me. You say so much, trying not to say certain things. I’ve known for decades. And me, I just allow you to think I’m oblivious while you, the sweet man that you are, continue regardless. When I was just a child, I perfected this act, you see. I have always had a reputation in my family: Alexis does not love. She might care, she might even show some superficial affection, but she does not, <em>cannot</em>, love.”</p><p>Randall turned his head on his pillow. The outline of her face was there in the night. “You’ve never said that before. Why, Lix? Why did you choose to play that part?”</p><p>Lix gave a hollow and pained laugh. “As a child?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“It’s a bit ridiculous.”</p><p>Braver under the cover of darkness, Randall found her waist and rested his hand upon it. “It can’t be.”</p><p>She took a breath. “My family was built on a solid foundation of emotional blackmail,” she said. “I first remember my mother saying to me, ‘You would do it if you loved me,’ when I was four years old. It never stopped, and it was never only my mother. There were one or two exceptions, relatives who were above doing that, but most of them were quite happy to hold me to ransom. I learned that if they thought I could not love – or at least love in a way they could recognise – they wouldn’t be able to trap me that way.” She put her hand on his, where it lay on her waist. “And then, when I was older, I thought that if my own family would try and trap me with love, so would anyone else I knew. I believed I was protecting myself. In the end, all I’ve done is hurt myself and you.”</p><p>Randall sighed. “I think we’ve both hurt ourselves, and one another. We never do it intentionally.”</p><p>“I do love,” Lix said. She spoke like she was defending herself in a court of law against the most heinous of crimes. “I can love. I can feel it. And I do love you. I’ve always wanted you to know but I’ve never known how to tell you. It’s something I never learned to do. Why would I need to if I convinced the world I was incapable of it?”</p><p>His heart shattered and sang in the same moment. She loved him. She loved him but she had been so damaged by her childhood that she could not tell him. Randall gently pulled Lix in. “It is safe with me,” he told her. “I wouldn’t try to blackmail you, or trap you, or any of those things your family did.”</p><p>“No,” she agreed, “but you would blackmail yourself. Deep down, I don’t think you understand that you can be loved. That you <em>are</em> loved.” In the dark, her lips touched his as she spoke. He had not realised her face was so close. He had not intended it, but neither did he draw back from her. “You’ve always had this daft notion that there’s no reason for anyone to love you. I can tell, Randall.”</p><p>“How-”</p><p>But again she cut him off. “There are certain feelings one knows the symptoms of.” She lifted their hands and intertwined their fingers. “We were both wrong. In so many ways, for so many reasons.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“So am I.”</p><p>Lix rolled over and switched on her bedside lamp; Randall sat up when she did, wondering why she suddenly drew back. He didn’t get very long to wonder before he discovered she was not drawing back at all. Her hands were on his face, and she gazed at him not like she was seeing anything new, but as if she were coming home.</p><p>She kissed him.</p><p>He knew now, that feeling of being home. It was a kiss that had never left him. He knew every move she would make; he knew to be gentle with her when she was giving herself so freely, but to never let her think that this wasn’t everything he wanted. They stopped for a moment, their faces resting against one another. She smiled; he felt her lips move on his cheek. That smile pressed itself into his lips again.</p><p>Control, what he had told himself was control, began to wash away in the warmth of freedom. He found himself kissing her jaw, her face, her neck, while his hands found every curve he had ever loved. It was Lix who pulled him down so that he leaned over her; control was with her. She had her hand on his stomach, under his clothing, moving downwards as slowly as she knew she could.</p><p>He touched her thigh with his fingertips. She would move him away if she wanted to. She did not. In fact, she dragged his hand up under her nightdress.</p><p>Randall hesitated. He stopped to look into her face.</p><p>She knew what he was asking. He didn’t need to say it out loud anymore; he had asked it just about every single time. “I’m certain,” she said. He could feel her hand tight around his, hovering an inch above her inner thigh. “Completely certain.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Maggie McPhee</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It surprised Randall to wake with Lix in his arms. Soft and warm, skin on skin, they lay there and watched the shadow of the snowflakes falling behind the curtains. She lay with her head on his chest, seemingly regretting nothing that they had done.</p>
<p>“We should go for a walk,” she said quietly. “Somewhere quiet.”</p>
<p>“I know all the old roads,” he said. He did not add that he had always walked them alone. “I know one you’d like.”</p>
<p>And that was what they did. They walked the road along the river, where Randall felt the iced puddles crack beneath his feet and looked up at the snow laden trees, listening for the worlds and centuries in their branches. One day, someone would walk this road, and those branches would tell of a man and a woman who wandered hand in hand, discovering and rediscovering themselves.</p>
<p>“Are you sure you want to go to this wedding tomorrow?” he asked her as they set foot onto the bridge.</p>
<p>“Why wouldn’t I be?”</p>
<p>“The McPhees can be rowdy,” he said. “There are so many of them.”</p>
<p>“Just because you’ve forgotten how to party,” said Lix; she nudged him with her shoulder, grinning. “It’ll be fine, Randall. It’s only a wedding.”</p>
<p>The snow began to fall around them, first in flecks like dust, but soon in huge flakes. Lix looked up at the sky; he knew she was letting it fall onto her face. He had seen her do it once before, but age had not taken that wonder from her. It was just another thing he could love about her.</p>
<p>Back under the trees, they were sheltered once more. “I’m glad we came here,” Randall said. His voice echoed. “We needed it.”</p>
<p>“You were right,” she said. “We had to have our own place to just be. To let it come.”</p>
<p>By ‘it’, he knew she meant grief. And love. But with Randall and Lix, one could no longer come without the other. “Do you feel any better?”</p>
<p>She smiled at him, but the sorrow was still there in her face. “A little. I didn’t know what to do with it. I had a cry in the bathrooms the day we found out,” she admitted. “The last time I cried in a bathroom, I think I was about fourteen.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t ransack your desk,” he replied, “so I’d say you were quite restrained.”</p>
<p>“I was. It didn’t get anything out. It was all still there. And I knew, that night on the train, I just knew when it did overflow, it would be ugly. I tried to hold it back.”</p>
<p>“You tried to be angry,” he said.</p>
<p>Lix nodded her head solemnly. “I thought, ‘Randall can handle me being angry. It’s better than the alternative.’” She hesitated for a moment before she said, “I <em>was</em> angry, though. Angry with myself. When I saw you with that little girl, it was like a kick in the gut. You would have made a good father. I should have given you that chance.”</p>
<p>Randall could not say whether or not he would have made a good father. He often thought he would have been like an alien to any child; most adults struggled to understand him, so what chance would a child have? “You did what you had to do,” he reminded her. “I wasn’t there. We were both being thrown from one war into the next. You put Sofia with the first family you trusted with her. Your feelings, my feelings, they couldn’t take priority over our daughter’s safety. You did the right thing by her. How were you to know they would end up where they did? If you want to blame anyone, blame Hitler.”</p>
<p>“If I could kill that man a second time, I would.”</p>
<p>Randall couldn’t help but smile at that. It was Lix all over.</p>
<p>Along the road, he spotted the figure of a small woman heading towards them. She had her head down, her face largely hidden by sheets of dark brown hair, and Randall didn’t realise who it was until they were only a few feet from one another. “Maggie,” he said to her. The girl didn’t look up. “Maggie, are you alright?”</p>
<p>He stopped and watched her stride past him.</p>
<p>“Maggie! Come here just a minute, would you?!”</p>
<p>She ignored him and kept walking.</p>
<p>“You know her?” asked Lix.</p>
<p>“She’s Sandy McPhee’s daughter,” he said. “The man who dealt with your admirer last night.”</p>
<p>There was something not right there. Even if Maggie hadn’t wanted to talk to him, she was usually the type to come straight out with it and tell him to leave her alone. Part of him wanted to follow her, but he knew he could not do that. Not only would it frighten Maggie, but Sandy would string him up for following his daughter along an old deserted road, whether he was alone or not.</p>
<p>Randall and Lix continued walking their own route, though more slowly than they had done. Lix took his hand again. Though she did not say anything, he knew she understood that he was unnerved by the sight of Maggie.</p>
<p>When, a few minutes later, Sandy McPhee practically dived at them from the turn off to one of the old tracks, Randall instinctively knew he had been right. “Have ye seen Maggie?” he asked Randall, clearly out of breath.</p>
<p>“She passed us up the road, going towards the bridge.”</p>
<p>Lix dropped his hand as she turned a deathly shade of white. He was sure they were coming to the same conclusion at the same moment. She ran. She ran through the snow, back the road they had come, before Randall could say a word to her.</p>
<p>Sandy followed, though he did not run. The man’s chest would not take it; instead, they walked as quickly as they could, knowing that Lix was fit enough to run. “What is going on?” asked Randall.</p>
<p>“Same auld riot. Had this fight wi’ her a hundred times, but this mornin’ she turns and runs fae the cottage. Her face had an odd blank look over it,” said Sandy breathlessly. “I shouted for her but she didnae heed me.”</p>
<p>“Sandy,” Randall began, very aware that it was not his place to comment on the situation at all. “If Maggie is really <em>this</em> miserable with what she thinks her life is going to be, isn’t it better to let her try something else?”</p>
<p>“She’s better off wi’ us, wi’ the family.”</p>
<p>“Maggie taking a step out on her own won’t mean she’s disowned her family,” Randall pointed out, “or that you will never see her again.”</p>
<p>“Who will she have on her side, Randall?” snapped Sandy. “Answer me that. You ken as well as me how folk treat my kind. She’s sixteen. She’s still a bloody bairn.”</p>
<p>He almost bit his tongue. He would have done, if he didn’t think it would cost Maggie McPhee her sanity or her life. “She’s a young woman,” he said firmly. “I’ve had women only a couple of years older than Maggie working for me. Lix wasn’t much older than her when she went away to university. The world might be frightening – I should know, I’ve seen the worst of it first-hand – but it’s not as evil as it seems, Sandy. Wherever she finds cruelty, she will also find kindness to outshine it.”</p>
<p>Sandy huffed, and it wasn’t because of his chest. “I cannae comprehend why she doesnae want her family.”</p>
<p>“I think she does want her family. She just knows there’s a world bigger than the McPhees and she wants to see it.”</p>
<p>They turned onto the bridge. Maggie stood on its wall, the river raging below. Randall’s heart went to his throat when he saw Lix standing up there next to her. “Maggie!” Sandy called out, but Randall put his hand on the man’s arm to stop him. Rather than run, they approached carefully until they were in earshot of the conversation.</p>
<p>Lix was speaking. “…want the best for you. It’s just that their idea of that and yours don’t match up. And that’s alright. Nobody has the same idea of what the world is, or what it ought to be. Your father doesn’t want to keep you imprisoned. He just wants you to be safe. That’s all we ever want as parents.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be stuck,” Maggie said tearfully. “I don’t want to be trapped between camps in the arse end of nowhere and slum flats in the towns. I don’t want to marry for necessity. I don’t want to be pregnant and kicking leeks out the ground at the crack of dawn. I don’t want to end up having seven children and then struggling to feed them,” she explained. Randall noted that she was more articulate than her parents. She always had been, though. He could remember lending her his books every winter since she was six years old, and every winter she knew and understood more. “There’s a whole world out there, Miss Storm, and I don’t want to miss it. I’d rather die now than have to go through a life filled with everything I want to get away from.”</p>
<p>“I was just like you, you know,” said Lix. “All I wanted was to be free. To see what was out there, whether it was good or bad. And if I’m honest with you, Maggie, a fair amount of it is bad. It’s only the good things we find in the depths of it that make it worth it. I was tough. I walked away from most of my family, but that also meant walking away from their money and their privilege. I managed to wade through it. I got through university on a scholarship. I got a good job. I fell in love. Made a mess of it, of course, but that was my own doing, not the world’s.”</p>
<p>“I know it won’t be easy,” said Maggie. “I’m not naïve. I know nothing is easy. Jesus Christ, if my people know anything, it’s that nothing is easy. I just want to be allowed to <em>try</em>.”</p>
<p>Sandy stepped forwards; Randall thought he saw him wipe a tear from his face. “We can think of somethin’, Maggie, ma dear. If you want your life tae be different, we can find a way. There’s got tae be some way through this.”</p>
<p>Maggie looked around at Lix.</p>
<p>“See? I did say he doesn’t want to trap you,” said Lix. “Why don’t we come down from here?”</p>
<p>Maggie nodded her head. Lix helped her turn on the spot, and she jumped down to her father’s arms. Randall went to help Lix down.</p>
<p>She slipped.</p>
<p>“Lix!” roared Randall. He lunged and grabbed arm and waist as she stumbled backwards. Gravity pulled them both over the wrong side, but in the blink of an eye, the were sitting on the bridge’s road after thumping down to the ground. In the chaos, he had felt Sandy pulling him back and had seen Maggie’s small hands wrenching Lix in. If not for them, both Randall and Lix might have been dead in the waters below.</p>
<p>“Bloody hell!” gasped Lix. “Thank you!”</p>
<p>“Nae bother!” Sandy panted. He laughed a little, probably through shock and nerves. “C’mon, Maggie. Let’s get ye home tae a fire and some meat.”</p>
<p>Randall watched Sandy put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders; they rounded the corner and were out of sight. He scrambled to his feet and got Lix standing. “Are you alright?” he asked her.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” she said.</p>
<p>“<em>Never</em> get up on a bridge in the snow again.”</p>
<p>Lix held his stare for a moment and then laughed at how ludicrous that sounded. He shook his head at her but smiled all the same. She kissed him softly, her hands cupping his face. “What was that for?” he asked.</p>
<p>“I don’t need a reason.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Ribbons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I had an idea,” Lix said. She put her book down and looked straight at Randall while he straightened the painting above the fireplace. They were both ready for the wedding, but it ate at Randall to know what he was walking into. “I wanted to tell you about it before the wedding this afternoon.”</p><p>Randall waited, apprehensive in the knowledge that sometimes Lix’s ideas were braver than they were sensible.</p><p>“Maggie,” she said. “She could stay in my spare room.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Think about it, Randall,” she said. There was a glint in her eyes that he knew all too well. “She wants to go. Her father needs her to be safe or it’ll drive him half-mad thinking about her. At least in my spare room, he knows where she is, and he knows she isn’t on her own.”</p><p>“You,” he said carefully, “housing a sixteen-year-old girl?”</p><p>He did not scorn the idea. It was goodhearted and pragmatic, and exactly the sort of thing Lix would come up with. What bothered him was that he did not know whether or not Lix could cope with it.</p><p>“Yes! Look, despite the fact I didn’t speak to the woman for fifteen years, my mother left me that godforsaken house in her will. I’m sure she did it because she knew I hated the place. If nothing else, my mother would turn in her grave if she saw me take a girl like Maggie through the front door,” she grinned. Her smile faltered, though, when she saw the look on Randall’s face. “You think it’s a terrible idea, don’t you?”</p><p>“No,” he said. “I think it’s a kind idea.”</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“But are you sure you would manage?”</p><p>“I am an adult,” Lix reminded him. “I can deal with being responsible for her.”</p><p>“That’s not what I meant.” She raised her eyebrows at him; he sat down next to her and took her hand in his. “You are in pain, Lix, and you will be in pain for a long time to come. Are you sure having Maggie around wouldn’t make you feel even worse?”</p><p>Lix looked down at their hands for a moment. “If I can do some good in a young woman’s life, I won’t be stopped by a little bit of pain.”</p><p>“What I saw the other night wasn’t a ‘little bit of pain,’” he told her. “I saw a woman in an indescribable amount of pain.”</p><p>“The world doesn’t stop turning because I’m in pain.”</p><p>Randall lifted Lix’s hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. “I would never stop you from doing what you feel is right. And I will keep my promise; I will never give up on you. Just promise me something in return.”</p><p>“What would that be?”</p><p>“Don’t insist on doing it all alone. Ask for help. Allow me to help when you need it but cannot ask.”</p><p>She nodded her head. “I promise you, Randall, I won’t cut you out. I wouldn’t do that to us. Not again.”</p><p>Randall kissed her temple and then rose to his feet. “We’d better go up a bit earlier if you want to explain this idea to Sandy.”</p>
<hr/><p>Randall pulled off the road next to the McPhees’ rundown old cottage, extremely cautious to avoid hitting any of the young children running around. Sandy McPhee had seven living children, and all but two (soon to be one) were married with children of their own. The eldest son, Alexander, had six under the age of nine.</p><p>Sandy’s wife, Charlotte, was building a campfire on the large concrete square in front of the house. Alexander and his two eldest children were clearing the snow. Charlotte set her firewood down when she saw her visitors get out of their vehicle. “Randall!” she called with a smile. She came to greet them; Randall quickly kissed her cheek. “Charlotte McPhee. And you must be Lix Storm, am I right?” she added when she kissed Lix’s cheek too.</p><p>“Yes,” said Lix.</p><p>“Thank you so much for talkin’ Maggie off the bridge yesterday,” she said seriously.</p><p>“Actually, she is the reason we’ve arrived a little early,” Lix informed her. “I have a proposition for her, if you and your husband are agreeable.”</p><p>Charlotte’s hands set themselves onto her hips, her expression puzzled. “Right well, better come in, then!”</p><p>They followed her into the cottage. Though it was cramped, it was spotlessly clean. “Maggie, take the bairns ben the front and finish thon fire, would ye?”</p><p>Maggie nodded. She smiled at Randall and Lix as she passed them with her nieces and nephews behind her. Sandy poured them all tea and Charlotte gestured for them to sit down at the kitchen table. Lix glanced at Randall; he thought he could see her confidence wavering. Not in her offer, but in how to put it across.</p><p>Charlotte smiled. “What’s this proposition, then, Miss Storm?”</p><p>“Well,” Lix began, leaning forwards a little. “As we found out yesterday, Maggie desperately wants to explore life in a city, where there are more opportunities for a girl her age.”</p><p>“Willin’ tae jump aff a bridge-”</p><p>“Wheesht, Sandy!” Charlotte said sharply. “Let the poor wummin speak, for God’s sakes!”</p><p>Randall could not withhold the smirk that came to his face; he had almost forgotten that, while Sandy did think he was the head of the family, Charlotte was very much in charge of proceedings. “I am a journalist,” Lix continued. “I work with Randall; that’s how we met. I have a house in London with space to spare. If Maggie wants a room with me, and you are happy for her to have it, she is welcome.”</p><p>Charlotte frowned. “What’s the catch?”</p><p>“No catch,” Lix assured her.</p><p>“How much will she have to pay for board?”</p><p>“Nothing. I inherited my house, Mrs. McPhee, and if I’m truthful, I never wanted it. I have always lived alone, so it has always been too big for only me. There is no rent to pay anything towards. If, when she’s on her feet and she’s got a good job, she wants to stay and insists she contribute, I won’t stop her – that’s a matter of pride, I know – but I won’t take any money from her unless I am <em>sure</em> she can comfortably spare it.”</p><p>Sandy and Charlotte gaped at one another, clearly stunned by Lix’s offer. “Why’re ye offerin’ this, Miss Storm?” asked Sandy.</p><p>“I have more space and more money than I need. I neither earned nor wanted most of it,” said Lix. “If I can use that to give Maggie a head start to fulfil whatever ambition she cherishes, I will certainly offer to do so.”</p><p>“What if she hates it there?” fretted Charlotte.</p><p>“I will pay her train fare back to you.”</p><p>Charlotte tapped the table nervously with the tip of her ring finger. “Will she be safe with you?”</p><p>“Completely. I would look after her, Mrs. McPhee.”</p><p>They had a silent conversation. Much like Randall and Lix, Sandy and Charlotte had loved one another so long that they shared an unspoken language only they could know. Finally, Charlotte said, “If she wants to go, she can. I’d rather this than her goin’ away on her own – at least we’ll be sure she’s safe.”</p><p>Lix smiled. The four of them got to their feet and went outside together.</p><p>They found carnage. Maggie was bellowing at three of her nieces, who were currently throwing mud-tainted snow at each other. Alexander was wrestling a large stick out of his six-year-old son’s hands before the boy could hit anyone with it. Sandy’s only other son, David, had arrived with his wife and children; he had three of them.</p><p>“The minister is due in twenty minutes,” groaned Charlotte. She stormed over to the three girls; they all froze where they stood when they became aware of their grandmother’s presence. “In!” she ordered them, pointing towards the house. They obeyed without hesitation. “Sandy, help Alexander and Maggie with this lot. Randall, with me. Miss Storm-”</p><p>“Please, call me Lix.”</p><p>“<em>Lix</em>,” Charlotte corrected herself impatiently. “Come in and help me sort the three lassies, would ye?”</p><p>Randall, who had always been just a tad intimidated by Charlotte, had no intention of arguing with her. Inside, he and Lix followed her to the front room, where the fire would warm the three girls up after the snow. “You three, here.” The children stood in a line before her. “I’ll strip and dress them. Randall, you wash their faces. Lix,” she said, handing over a brush and a handful of palest lilac ribbons, “<em>hair</em>.”</p><p>“I dinnae want ribbons!” complained one of the girls, about seven years of age. David came into the house and walked past them to the kitchen.</p><p>“Your auntie is gettin’ wed the day, Esther McPhee,” Charlotte said. “Ye’ll wear ribbons and ye’ll dae it quietly.”</p><p>Randall, preferring not to risk the sharpness of Charlotte’s tongue, took a basin of warm water, a cloth and soap from David, who had just come through the door with them. “Dae as ye’re telt and she’ll no’ hurt ye,” he said with a grin.</p><p>It was good advice. Charlotte stripped and redressed the girls immaculately in a flash, and then informed them all she was going to check on Mariah, who was getting ready with her elder sisters in in the bedroom. She left them alone with the children. Randall sat down on the couch and gently wiped away the mud from Esther’s face and hands, and passed her on to Lix.</p><p>He watched Lix separate Esther’s dark curls into two sections as he washed the other two girls. To watch her was to know that alongside her fierce mind, Lix Storm bore a gentle heart.</p><p>Images of the first day of school reeled through his mind. Their daughter standing in front of the fire in her new school dress, having her hair done – complaining about it, if she was anything like her mother – while Randall fixed her socks and wiped the toast crumbs from her face.</p><p>He saw Lix dressing her for family occasions, trying to convince her dresses were lovely while she stood there in a trouser suit.</p><p>He imagined himself buttoning her coat, wrapping her scarf around her neck because, for all he was unbothered by the cold himself, he constantly worried his little girl wasn’t warm enough.</p><p>Bringing her out for ice cream when the summer sun made them long for the ice of winter, a messy smile just visible beneath a sunhat.</p><p>Helping her with the spelling as she wrote her first essay for school, only a page long but filling him with pride.</p><p>Taking her to see <em>Cinderella</em> because, even though she pretended she was hard as nails and oh-so-grown-up at twelve, she still loved her days out with her dad.</p><p>“Randall.”</p><p>He looked at Lix again, only now noticing that he had been staring right through her. The children were gone. Lix did not say a word, and he did not need to say anything to her. Perhaps he would talk of it later, but for now, there was a grief settling in his chest that he could not describe to her.</p><p>All those lost days.</p><p>The sorrow of it broke him.</p><p>Lix moved closer to him and pulled him in, his face against her chest as she rested his chin upon his head. “I know,” she whispered to him; he felt her kiss the top of his head and wrap and arm around his back, holding him tight. “I know.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Campfire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They gathered around that fire, now burning in the early evening twilight, once Mariah McPhee had married Jimmy Lowther. Everyone but Randall, Charlotte and the children drank whisky and gin. David and Alexander had the accordion out; Randall smiled at that. Of course, it meant that sooner or later Lix would be drunk enough to want to dance with him, and Randall was just going to have to endure it.</p><p>For now, though, he contented himself with watching her dance with the groom’s father; he was less contented with the shine the man seemed to have taken to her, but knew it was harmless.</p><p>Sandy McPhee came to sit next to him on a pail. “She’s yer wife?”</p><p>“Wishful thinking,” Randall muttered.</p><p>Sandy laughed. “If ye wish it, ask her,” he said.</p><p>“It isn’t that simple.” He looked around at Sandy, who was having his dram topped up by his new son-in-law.</p><p>“How complicated can it be, man?”</p><p>Randall looked down into his mug of tea; it tasted smoky because the water had been boiled on the fire, but he rather liked it. “Things have happened,” he said. He glanced at Sandy and weighed up in a moment everything he knew of the man, from which he deduced it was safe to have this conversation with him. “We were in Spain in the thirties,” he began. “Working. It was dangerous, and the only people we had were each other.”</p><p>“Been in love for twenty year, but an eejit since ye left the womb,” Sandy said with a nod. “With ye so far.”</p><p>“We had a child.”</p><p>“Outwith wedlock.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Sandy slapped him on the back. “Nae judgement fae me. Alexander was three afore me and Charlotte got it ower wi’.”</p><p>“I had to leave. They kept opening and closing the borders, the violence was escalating and spreading, and I was posted elsewhere. Lix stayed. She had our daughter and I wasn’t there. When she got to France, she felt that, in the interests of the baby’s welfare and safety, she had to give her up. She would have been an unmarried mother in England with nobody to help; she would have lost her job and most of her friends and family, although I gather now that she kept out of her family’s way as it was. I was away and she didn’t ask for help. I know now that she probably couldn’t trust me,” Randall took a long gulp of his tea. “But it was alright. It was what she had to do to keep the baby safe. We knew she had done the right thing.”</p><p>Sandy stared into the fire. “What’s best fir them’s usually hardest fir us.”</p><p>“I came back,” Randall said. “Back to London. I joined her news team as leader. We looked for our daughter. She refused to hear of it at first, but she joined me.”</p><p>“Any luck?”</p><p>“We found her. We discovered she was killed in an air raid in France.”</p><p>“Jesus, Randall, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“So now, here we are.”</p><p>There was something freeing in telling another person. Another man. Someone who was not embroiled in it. But under the flickering light of the fire, he saw Sandy was frowning. “When did this happen? When did yehs find oot?”</p><p>“Last week.”</p><p>They looked over at Lix. “And she’s dancin’ like thon.” And indeed, Lix was dancing under the influence of whisky, this time with Charlotte’s sister, Rose. “Dinnae trust it.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>A haunted look passed Sandy’s face. “When our wee Henry died, we were doon by Dunkeld. End o’ November, first snow o’ the winter. Charlotte, she seemed no’ bad. Upset, o’ course, but no’ as bad as we expected. Went through a load o’ drink, though.”</p><p>Randall searched for Lix again, seeing her being taken into the house by Rose, Maggie, Esther, and two of the young boys, laughing as she went. “Lix always drank,” Randall said. “That’s nothing new.”</p><p>“So did Charlotte. That was why we didnae think much o’ it. But then she waited fir me tae go away tae work, handed Alexander tae ma brother. Told him she wis goin’ fir meat. The halfwit let her go. Days after losin’ a bairn, the moron let her away on her ain. I found her on ma way back fae work, lyin’ there, the snow red under her.” Randall turned to him, horror struck. “She’d drank a bottle o’ whisky, smashed the empty, and gashed at her wrists wi’ the broken glass.”</p><p>Instinctively, Randall found Charlotte and watched her smack the back of David’s head while he grinned – apparently twenty-five years was not old enough to get away with giving his mother cheek. Shaking her head, she went into the cottage after the other six.</p><p>“I’m sorry you both went through that.”</p><p>“It was a long time ago,” Sandy said. “As ye can very well see, she’s alright now.” He gestured to Jimmy Lowther to refill his glass. “All I’m sayin’ is ye cannae be fooled by them. They’ll easy lie tae yer face if they think it’s protectin’ ye.”</p><p>“I don’t need to be protected.”</p><p>“Willnae stop her tryin’, pal.”</p><p>Lix emerged from the house again and made her way over to Randall. He examined her face – what he could see of it, half of her in shadow from the fire – and tried to work out if she was as fine as she seemed to be. She was definitely drunk but, as he had said to Sandy, that was not a reliable indicator one way or the other. Randall doubted she’d gone an entire day sober since she was in her twenties. “Maggie is going to follow us home,” she said, “next week. That will give me time to update her room. I’m fairly sure my mother stopped paying attention to her children’s bedrooms in about 1921. I know my little brother’s old rocking horse is still in there,” she laughed. She lit a cigarette and sat down on a rock on Randall’s other side. Catching sight of the look on his face, she leaned forwards to get a glimpse of Sandy. “What are you two conspiring about?”</p><p>Sandy put his hand on Randall’s shoulder and leaned on him to get up from his pail. He left Randall alone with Lix, able to at least try and work out what was going on behind that smile. “I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “You shouldn’t need to-”</p><p>“Stop talking right <em>now</em>, Randall Brown.”</p><p>He obeyed.</p><p>“You do not need to shield me from your grief,” she said sternly, “nor do I want you to do that.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t want you shielding me from your grief, either,” he said. “You do it at the best of times – keep it all to yourself, add a questionably healthy dose of alcohol, cut everyone into pieces with that tongue of yours. I don’t want to wake up one day and find out you’ve done something-”</p><p>He caught himself. That was something he could not say to her. The thought of it was too excruciating for his heart to bear.</p><p>To Randall surprise, Lix’s lips had turned up into a smile. Or was it a grimace? Between the alcohol and the half-light, it was difficult to tell. “We both need to stop shielding one another,” she said.</p><p>He sighed. “We do.”</p><p>“Oi, Storm!” bellowed one of the children. Randall was sure it was Alexander’s eldest son.</p><p>“He’s taken to using my surname, that one,” she said with a grin.</p><p>The boy signalled to her by pointing at David with the accordion. He, Maggie, Rose and a young man – a brother of the groom – came to them. “Dashin’ White Sergeant,” said the boy. “On yer feet, Brown.”</p><p>Randall raised an eyebrow at him, hoping it would deter him.</p><p>“I didn’t teach an Englishwoman to dance just for you to refuse her,” said Maggie. “Come on. Up.”</p><p>At this he did rise to his feet; the reason the five of them had taken her into the house dawned on him. “I didn’t want to make a fool of myself dancing with you,” she admitted quietly, taking his hand to join Maggie, who stood on his left when Lix stood to his right.</p><p>So dance, Randall did. Loath as he was to admit it, there was something about the lungfuls of cold night air and the warmth of the fire on his skin that reminded him to live. That he could still live. That he <em>wanted</em> to live, and to live with as much of this woman as she would allow him to have. For the first time in what must have been years, Randall laughed. Not a sarcastic or mirthless laugh, but a genuine laugh. Joy at being so close to someone he loved. Relief that he was universally accepted by everyone in his company. Comforted that he could be so close to the Earth, surrounded by nature.</p><p>It was well past midnight when he managed to drag Lix away from the whisky and the people. In the car, on the way back to the house, she said, “That was the most fun I’ve had in years.”</p><p>“You couldn’t have found <em>that</em> in London, could you?”</p><p>“Dancing drunk around a fire? They’d arrest you for that in London, darling” she said, with something between a snigger and a giggle.</p><p>At the house, Randall unlocked the front door and hung the key on the hook next to the coat stand. No sooner had he got out of his coat and hat did he find he was pinned against the wall; Lix kissed him hard, her arms around his neck. This was nothing like the other night. It was hot and harsh. He did not stop her, for he knew that she would do what she needed to do. He kissed her back just as hard, just as harsh, and passed control to her. Her breathing turning ragged, she threw off her coat and pulled Randall’s hand up under her blouse, like she was desperate to feel another person’s touch. When his fingers touched the soft skin of her waist, she suddenly froze.</p><p>Lix stared up, straight into his eyes, and he saw it. Exactly what Sandy had warned him of. The moment his skin had touched hers, a wall crumbled and brought tears to her eyes. Randall stroked her cheek with his thumb. There was something she needed to hear, and it took those tears in her eyes for him to summon the courage to say it.</p><p>“I love you,” he whispered to her.</p><p>She kissed him again, but this time with less haste; slower, more considered, she kissed him with all the love they had ever made. She pressed herself against him like she could not bear there to be any space at all between them. “Take me to bed,” she told him breathlessly.</p><p>Randall stepped out from the trappings of her body and the wall and picked up her coat. He placed it neatly on the stand. He leaned over Lix and straightened the picture they had knocked squint. Once his house was back in order, he held out his hand. She took it, their fingers locked together, and followed him down the hall.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Randall Brown vs. The Jam Jar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After being so alive last night, this made no sense. How could it be? Had something broken while he had slept? He had gone to sleep reasonably content. Worried for her he might have been, but he’d had Lix in his arms; there was no better way to fall asleep. The sound of her heart beating against his chest had calmed him.</p>
<p>Randall stood in the sitting room, dressed but not able to remember dressing, trying to force something rational out of this feeling. He looked at the clock. It was already nine o’clock – much later than he would ordinarily sleep. He felt smaller than usual. Easier to wound.</p>
<p>Lix was already up. He could smell the breakfast she must have started to cook when she had heard movement from the bedroom. It drew him through to the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakes,” Lix said to him with a grin. Randall did not smile. He could not. “I was going to wake you but I thought if you were sleeping it out, you needed the rest.” She placed a cup of tea and a plate of bacon, lorne sausage, eggs and toast on the table. “Sit down. Eat. You must need it.”</p>
<p>He almost asked what she was going to have, but he knew she did not eat breakfast. She always said it made her feel queasy to eat in the morning. Randall did sit down. He sipped his tea, though it tasted…not like it had done for his entire life. But it was only tea. There could be nothing wrong with it. He ate. That did not taste as it always had either. Things he had eaten since he was a small boy now tasted <em>wrong</em>.</p>
<p>He had no appetite. Eating seemed like such a pointless exercise, for he was not hungry and felt as though he would never be hungry again.</p>
<p>But he ate anyway. If he did not, Lix would worry. That was the last thing he wanted. He was meant to be keeping an eye on her, not the other way around.</p>
<p>The wireless played in the background and he opened up the local newspaper, trying to distract himself from the knowledge that nothing was the same. There was nothing on the front page that he couldn’t have seen coming, really. The RAF had been sniffing around Fraserburgh for a while and he was almost certain the journalists were on the right track there. He only needed to look out the window to know that more snow was coming.</p>
<p>It was a hollow cave in his chest that disturbed him. He could not concentrate on anything but it and what was painted on its walls. A tiny face he’d only ever seen in a photo and a Spanish birth certificate. Lix falling into his arms, drunk and broken, howling like a wounded animal. Bombs crashing down on Paris, killing his child. A file on a table and a desk as torn as the man who had brought it to chaos. A hand in the dark, reaching out across a train berth from a mother who tried not to grieve. That same woman making love with him while he knew that she needed something – someone – easier to love than him.</p>
<p>There was no sense to anything. How could there be when his daughter was dead? How could anything ever carry on? How could the mother of his child want to be anywhere near him?</p>
<p>Randall got to his feet. He opened the cupboard and pulled out the tins; he put them back in alphabetical order, equally spaced, labels facing out. “Randall,” he could hear Lix say. “What is it?”</p>
<p>Though he heard her, he did not quite know if she was there with him. If she was there, why? What could it possibly do for her to watch him do this? He turned his back on her. His hands went to the next cupboards, where the jars and the tea and coffee were. He tore it all out and put it back in order. But it wasn’t ordered at all and if it couldn’t go into proper order then the world would crash again.</p>
<p>Freddie might take a bad turn. He might lose his career. His mind might leave him entirely.</p>
<p>He might lose Lix.</p>
<p>The jam sat too near the tea and those things could not belong together. He pulled it out and started again, this time horribly aware that Lix was watching him. He could not stop it.</p>
<p>Now the coffee leaned against the cupboard wall and if it leaned it might fall and if it fell it would cause a mess and if it caused a mess it would be a catastrophe.</p>
<p>Nothing he did put it right. It always looked wrong. Nothing was in its place.</p>
<p>Nothing <em>had</em> a place.</p>
<p>How could nothing have a place? Everything had a place.</p>
<p>But it did not.</p>
<p>He did not have a place.</p>
<p>The jar of jam he held in his hand hovered in front of him. He could not find its place.</p>
<p>His hand slammed it down against the counter so hard that it smashed. There was nothing else to do with the damned thing.</p>
<p>Pain shot through his right hand. When he looked down, he saw a large gash in his palm. His hands shook.</p>
<p>“Randall?”</p>
<p>He turned around. Lix had moved to his left side, possibly the moment he had turned his back to her. “I…” he tried to say, but what could he say? There was no justifying it. To say he could not help doing it was not good enough.</p>
<p>“It’s alright,” she said calmly. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just something you do.” She gently took his injured hand and turned it to look at his palm. “I’m far more concerned about this.” Lix raised his hand and held it towards the light. “There doesn’t seem to be any glass in the cut but it’s quite deep. That is rather a lot of blood. I’d be happier if the doctor looked at it.”</p>
<p>Randall wanted no doctor, but he owed Lix that much. It would not be fair to refuse and have her worrying if the bleeding didn’t stop. “The phone number is in the book next to the phone,” he said. She wrapped a clean tea towel around his hand and rubbed his forearm softly before she turned to call the doctor.</p>
<p>How could he have been so idiotic? None of it had made him feel any better. That hole in his chest was still there, but now he had a sore hand as well.</p>
<p>Lix returned. “Dr. Beaton said he’ll be up in twenty minutes,” she told him. Her hand on his elbow, she steered him to the chair he had abandoned. He watched helplessly as she cleared away his plate, ran him a glass of water from the tap and went and got rid of the jam jar. She cleaned up his mess.</p>
<p>A knock at the door, and in walked the Dr. Beaton. “Mr. Brown?!” he called out.</p>
<p>“In the kitchen, doctor!” Lix answered him.</p>
<p>At the door, Dr. Beaton looked down at Randall with a benevolent smile. “I hear you fought a jam jar and the jam jar won,” he said. The man was from the Western Isles, and so still had a Gaelic twang to his voice.</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Well, we’ll soon get that sorted.” He sat down across the corner of the table from Randall and examined his hand. Lix placed a cup of tea down in front of him, milk and sugar beside it. Dr. Beaton looked up at her. “Thank you…I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name?”</p>
<p>“Lix Storm,” she said.</p>
<p>“Thank you, Ms. Storm.” Lix nodded and put her hand down upon Randall’s shoulder. “Right, Mr. Brown. A couple of stitches should help close that up.” He took out his equipment, some of which was a syringe and small bottle. “I’m going to give you a local anaesthetic. While that sets in, I’ll give it a clean and then we’ll stitch you up.”</p>
<p>It was not a pleasant experience, but he did not complain. It was perhaps a good thing Lix had been here; he likely would not have called the doctor had he not been concerned about upsetting Lix any more than need be.</p>
<p>“You’ll need to make an appointment to get the stitches taken out,” Dr. Beaton said, “but I suppose you’ll be back in London by that time.”</p>
<p>“I should be.”</p>
<p>“Good good. Just don’t do anything too strenuous with the hand and try not to have any more jam-related accidents,” said the doctor. He grinned, obviously with absolutely no clue as to how this injury had come about.</p>
<p>When Dr. Beaton left, Randall asked Lix, “What did you tell him?”</p>
<p>“Just that you dropped the jam when you took it out of the cupboard,” said Lix, “and you cut yourself on the broken glass. Perfectly ordinary household accident.”</p>
<p>Randall looked down at his bandaged hand. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“What was it, Randall?” she asked gently. “What set you off?”</p>
<p>He looked at her. Those bright blue eyes burned through him like she was peeling away the layers to get to the answer. That was in her nature, of course, but it was unnerving whenever she did it to him. “I woke up,” he said, “and I wasn’t the same person who went to sleep.”</p>
<p>And as he said it, he remembered Lix asking him, <em>“Why didn’t you just let me sleep, Randall?”</em></p>
<p>They went to sleep twenty years ago. Now they were awake and nothing was right.</p>
<p>“You are the same person, Randall,” she said quietly. “It’s the world that’s changed. The world used to make sense to you, and now it doesn’t. Grief does that, you know. It takes everything you thought you knew and changes it.”</p>
<p>“Considering I’ve never seen her I don’t think I have the right-”</p>
<p>“You do. She was your daughter. You loved her. You loved her and you hoped she was somewhere out there, living a happy life. You had a world where you didn’t know the truth,” she said, “and you’ve lost that. Your daughter is dead. It isn’t a crime to grieve for her. Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again, Randall Brown!”</p>
<p>He shattered. Hunched forwards, he collapsed into a fit of tears.</p>
<p>Lix got up from her chair and put her arms around him from above, just as she had done in his office. He did not throw her off this time. “You’re going to be alright,” she whispered in his ear. “You’re going to get through this, sweetheart, and we will both still be us.” He found her hand on his chest and grabbed it. He clung to her like she might vanish. “I love you. No matter what, no matter how many of those breakdowns you have, I love you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Live</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I don’t want to be here.”</p>
<p>The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. Lix had suggested they went for a walk in the falling snow; she seemed to know that snow calmed him.</p>
<p>“We can go home,” Lix said. She did so without hesitation. Randall turned to glance at her. Her face told him she knew exactly what he had meant. She sighed. “Oh, Randall.” Her voice was so loud in the silence around them, yet she barely spoke at all. “That isn’t the answer to any of this.” She reached out and took his uninjured hand into hers.</p>
<p>The feeling had hit him as Lix had held him at the kitchen table. Not only was he living in grief, but he lived in fear of the world itself, for he could not understand it. Politics, science, mathematics, journalism, those were the things he could understand. But how to live? Beyond his capabilities. “What difference would it make?” he asked her. “If I were no longer here?”</p>
<p>“Well, for one thing, I’d be utterly miserable.”</p>
<p>“You were fine for twenty years without me.”</p>
<p>“You weren’t dead.” Again, he looked at her, this time to observe her in her bluntness. “You were out there, somewhere, alive. That isn’t even nearly the same as burying you, and don’t you dare make that comparison.”</p>
<p>In the brightness of the snow, he noticed she had paled.</p>
<p>“My daughter is dead. I’m not having her father die too.”</p>
<p>She said it so abruptly, he knew it burned her mouth to say it. To even consider it as a possibility, to lose so much so quickly.</p>
<p>“I’m so alone,” he murmured to her, “all the time.”</p>
<p>“You don’t have to be. You <em>never</em> have to be alone unless you want to be, Randall.”</p>
<p>“Even when I’m in a crowded room, I’m alone, Lix.”</p>
<p>“I know. Trust me, I know. But we don’t have to be alone. We have each other now.”</p>
<p>It set his teeth on edge. There were times he wanted nothing more than to have never loved, just so his decision would hurt nobody.</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be here,” he repeated.</p>
<p>
  <em>Please help me.</em>
</p>
<p>Why couldn’t he say it out straight? Ask for help. Ask the woman who knew him best, who loved him most, for help.</p>
<p>“Live with me, Randall,” she said without warning.</p>
<p>He stopped walking and turned to face her. “What?”</p>
<p>“Live with me when we get back to London.”</p>
<p>Randall had no idea how to reply. The faint burst of happiness the thought brought him was almost instantly smothered by the dread of knowing how Lix would end up regretting ever having asked him. There was no way she could put up with him.</p>
<p>But she had essentially lived with him before.</p>
<p>She was living with him now. For only a few days, perhaps, but they were living in close quarters.</p>
<p>And then there was Maggie McPhee. It wasn’t fair on a sixteen-year-old girl to have to live with him, either. Lix might know how to accept him, but a child could not.</p>
<p>That child already had accepted him. She read his books. He remembered driving her to school in the mornings. He had known Maggie since she was a little girl. She knew him.</p>
<p>“I love you,” said Lix. Randall heard her, but it echoed like she was far in the distance. For the second time in the same day, Lix Storm was telling him she loved him.</p>
<p>How could that be?</p>
<p>He had just told her he no longer wanted to survive. Why was she telling him again that she loved him?</p>
<p>“I want you to live with me.”</p>
<p>“We can’t.”</p>
<p>“And why not?”</p>
<p>“Can you imagine the reaction? Us living together?”</p>
<p>“I am <em>so</em> tired of caring about other people’s reactions.”</p>
<p>“And Maggie. What example is that to set to her?” As he said it, he remembered that Maggie’s parents were well into starting a family before they married.</p>
<p>“Maggie lives to buckle tradition.”</p>
<p>In a fraction of a moment, Lix’s hands were holding his face.</p>
<p>She wanted him to be with her. It didn’t click together in Randall’s head. There was a fragment of his mind that thought it had to be a terrible idea, and there was a piece of his heart that could find nothing he would love more. They couldn’t find each other to talk it out.</p>
<p>“We can’t.”</p>
<p>“You don’t want to be alone,” she reminded him, “and I don’t want to be without you.”</p>
<p>“We can’t. Not without being married. The BBC would have our heads on spikes, and they would only be first in the queue.”</p>
<p>“Then marry me, you silly man!”</p>
<p>The snow settled in large flakes amongst her dark curls. She really was the most beautiful person Randall had ever seen. Nothing compared to her brilliance.</p>
<p>Her sense of humour was unmatched, too. How could she want to marry him? He was a walking, talking wreck. Did she think it was funny? The smile on her face was amused, but he could not say why. She stared up at him and the smile began to fade. He expected her to run away now, to realise what she had asked in a moment of frustrated amusement.</p>
<p>She <em>had</em> to have been joking. Lix Storm had never wanted to marry anyone. She had a little bit of disdain for the idea of marriage in general.</p>
<p>When she was younger. Now she was older, now she had been put through her torment, did she think differently of it?</p>
<p>“Marry me.”</p>
<p>The words were firmer this time. More serious.</p>
<p>She really meant it. Lix Storm wanted to marry him. He had told her he wanted to die – or at least to cease living – and she had asked him to marry her.</p>
<p>Randall leaned in and rested his forehead against hers. He put his arms around her neck and kissed her, hoping she knew what he needed her to know. “What if we regret it?” he asked of her.</p>
<p>“If there is anything you and I know how to live with, it’s regret,” she said. “I can’t speak for you, but I can’t see myself regretting it. I have never, ever regretted loving you. Of all the things I regret, that has never been one of them.” Her lips brushed against his when she spoke. When she needed him to listen to her, she kissed him with her words. “So <em>live</em>. Be brave. Marry me. <em>Live</em>, Randall.”</p>
<p><em>Live</em>.</p>
<p>Survive now so he could live with her. So he could have something that his heart longed for. Half a chance at happiness began with being near those he loved, did it not?</p>
<p>If he refused her, he knew Lix would take it. She would understand if he felt he couldn’t do it. There was no danger there; no matter how they existed, he belonged to her and she knew that. His heart knew Lix Storm would never walk away from him, for the very simple reason that she loved him too much. She could have walked away the moment they had discovered Sofia had died. That had been their last remaining tie.</p>
<p>Or so he had thought.</p>
<p>She was here with him, asking him to marry her.</p>
<p>The ties he once believed broken and shredded was still there, as strong as ever.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he said.</p>
<p>His head played no part in that answer. On paper, it was a terrible plan. A decision made in grief and fear and pain was not one they could safely say would be wise.</p>
<p>The same could be said about suicide. He could hear Lix say it without the words ever having to pass her lips.</p>
<p>His heart, though, wanted Lix Storm. It wanted a home. A life. The woman he loved wanted to marry him. His heart’s self-loathing snarl faltered at the realisation. It had miscalculated: she loved him.</p>
<p>“I’ll marry you.”</p>
<p>Lix grinned. She kissed him with such a force that he stumbled slightly.</p>
<p>She had heard him. <em>Please help me</em>. She had heard him ask her for help. In some way, she must have known what he needed, and that was not to be alone constantly. He could trust he would have his space with her, but also that she would keep him close when she could see him fumbling in the dark.</p>
<p>Though he said nothing about it, this meant that if she was struggling, he would be able to see it. She could not hide that from him if they lived together – she just wasn’t capable of it. She always wavered eventually. That was one less thing he had to worry about as he knew Lix was prone to acting a part at work. She was different at home. Her armour cracked.</p>
<p>“Please don’t die,” she said to him gently, her fingers stroking his face. “Live.” She pulled him into a tight cuddle, her arms around him, her fingers clutching at the back of his coat. “Stay and live with me.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Sofia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Randall had never seen someone cry while they slept.</p>
<p>To watch Lix do it broke his heart in two. She had fallen asleep on the sofa with the wireless on and when he had come to put a blanket over her, she was crying. Silently, with the occasional sniffle, weeping as she slept.</p>
<p>No shouting or screaming. Just the quiet tears one might expect to find at a funeral.</p>
<p>“Lix,” he said gently. He knelt down to her level and took her hand. “Lix?” He shook her shoulder this time, but she her slumber was too deep.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Lix turned to take in her surroundings. It was a pub. She recognised it; she had been here with Randall before. It was in Scotland, in the hills.</p>
<p>There he was in the corner. A young woman, about eighteen or nineteen, sat next to him. They were talking. Just talking, like they had always known one another. The girl laughed. Randall smiled. The pair of them were so happy, so utterly normal, that Lix could scarcely believe it was Randall sitting there without a care in the world.</p>
<p>He seemed to be drawing a map of some sort with his fingers on the table, pointing at one place then the next. She had forgotten that enthusiasm he had back then. Though he had still been controlled and compulsive, if she could get him on the right subject at the right time, he would talk for hours into the night. He did it like this, his hands acting as his markers.</p>
<p>She took a sip of her drink.</p>
<p>The woman glanced over at her, grinning and nodding her head towards Randall, and she saw her own eyes stare back at her.</p>
<p>Sofia.</p>
<p>Randall was obviously recounting a story to his daughter, but Lix could not know which one. He lifted his hands, using them to show her the size of something, perhaps; Sofia threw her head back and laughed. Lix wondered what he was telling Sofia about. Whatever it was, there was a light in his eyes that she had not seen for a long time.</p>
<p>They seemed to share a freedom. Connected by a quiet wildness – the kind that had once made Randall such a brilliant drinking companion. Lix laughed to herself. Between the two of them, they were bound to have passed down a wild and independent streak to their child.</p>
<p>He took Sofia’s hands in his, suddenly more serious. Lix very nearly went over to see what it was they spoke of, but she stopped herself from doing it. She had never had a proper relationship with her father because her mother and grandmother had been so overbearing, demanding to know the subject of their every conversation in an almost paranoid fashion.</p>
<p>Lix vowed never to come between Sofia and her father like that. It was not fair or right.</p>
<p>“She looks like you.”</p>
<p>She jumped halfway out of her skin when she saw her father standing at the bar beside her. “Dad,” she said.</p>
<p>He smiled at her. “I wish you’d let us meet her, darling,” he said.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t. You were dead and Mother was getting nowhere near her, even if I had brought her to England.”</p>
<p>“I know,” he assured her. “I just wish you could have. And him. Not the type I expected you to go for, if I’m honest.”</p>
<p>Lix laughed but stopped abruptly. “You died when I was sixteen. I have grown up since then.”</p>
<p>“Oh, my little Lix,” he sighed. He put his arm around her and pulled her in. “I am sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t your fault,” she said firmly. “There was nothing you could do. Though I will concede you could have told Mother to bugger off and let us have some time together near the end.”</p>
<p>“She would never have let us have it. I think you know that, love.”</p>
<p>Lix looked back at Randall and Sofia, deep in conversation. “I hope he’s telling her he loves her,” Lix heard herself say. “He isn’t particularly good at saying it. He’ll show it, but he doesn’t often say it.”</p>
<p>“That’s between them,” said her father, “just as our time should have been ours.”</p>
<p>She smiled, but she could feel the tears rising up her throat. “I hope she’s telling him what he needs to hold on to. I want her to tell him to live. Remind him that life really is that short for some of us, and it ought not to be for him.”</p>
<p>“You’re going to be alright, Lix,” he said. “You and Randall. You’ll be happy again.”</p>
<p>Sofia stood up. She was tall, not so much skinny as strong, with her father’s brown hair and straight back, and her grandfather’s slightly furrowed brow, even when she smiled. She crossed the room to the two of them.</p>
<p>“Mum,” she said. “Where’ve you been?”</p>
<p>Her accent was Scottish but repressed, like she had been raised in Scotland by a thoroughly English mother. Like they had evacuated themselves to Grampian in 1939 and chosen not to leave. Maybe they had moved often between London and Scotland, or maybe they worked in Aberdeen. They could have moved there after the war, when Aberdeen would no longer be bombed.</p>
<p>“Just catching up with your grandfather,” she said without missing a beat. Sofia grinned at him like she already knew him.</p>
<p>Lix reached out and took Sofia’s face into her hands. Warmth spread through her like the very first time she had held her baby, even now. Even all these years later. “My darling,” she whispered, “I love you.”</p>
<p>“Oh, don’t go all soppy on me, Mum,” Sofia groaned. “It doesn’t suit you.” Nevertheless, she took her mother’s hands. “I love you too. Now come on. Dad’s wating for you.”</p>
<p>And sure enough, Randall was watching them. He raised his hand. Lix’s father raised his in return.</p>
<p>Sofia took her to Randall; she sat down next to him in the corner booth, their daughter sitting on her other side. Randall placed his hand on Lix’s leg and kissed her on the lips. “I want a word with you two,” Sofia said. “You’re a pair of idiots. How in the world do you manage to keep skirting around each other like that? Get married and get on with living, for God’s sake!”</p>
<p>“It isn’t that simple,” Randall said.</p>
<p>“Oh, it is, Dad!” she retorted, exasperated. Lix suppressed a smirk. “It isn’t 1938 anymore. There’s nothing in your way.” She grasped Lix’s hand. “I’m gone. I’m never coming back. That isn’t your fault and you must stop crucifying yourselves.”</p>
<p>The tears that had threatened her before now poured down her face. “I’m so sorry,” Lix told her. “I was trying to give you the best chance I could.”</p>
<p>“I know that, Mum. You did well. I was a happy baby.” She reached across Lix and put her hand over Randall’s, where it sat on Lix’s leg. “You’re good people. You deserve a good life.”</p>
<p>In the tiniest fraction of a second, Lix found herself with her daughter’s head on her chest; she bowed her head and pressed a kiss into those brown curls she had inherited from her father. She watched as Randall turned his daughter’s hand in his like it was the most precious treasure any man had ever found.</p>
<p>“Lix.”</p>
<p>Something, someone, shook her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Lix.”</p>
<p>Another shake of her shoulder.</p>
<p>“Lix!”</p>
<p>The pub was gone.</p>
<p>Randall’s sitting room was around her now, bright and harsh. She was crying.</p>
<p>Lix sat upright, the world turning with every inch she raised her body. She heard him speak but could not register what he said. Nothing could get past that image burned into her mind, of a father and daughter having the relationship they deserved to have.</p>
<p>She longed to go back there, this time with him by her side, just so he could see the father he would have made. How happy he would have made his daughter. How she would laugh at his stories and hold his hand and contradict him when he was wrong.</p>
<p>What she wouldn’t give to let him see that.</p>
<p>Mortified, she wiped the tears away furiously. More came. They came and came, and nothing would curb their flow. He passed her a lit cigarette; maybe he knew she needed something to calm her, and he wasn’t about to hand her a drink.</p>
<p>Hands found her face, and his lips touched her forehead.</p>
<p>She didn’t want to be awake. She wanted to be back there with her daughter and her partner and her dad.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Randall tried to wake her again, his hand moving her shoulder. “Lix!”</p>
<p>She woke.</p>
<p>Her eyes blazed behind her tears. What had she been dreaming to make her cry? She shuffled herself up until she was sitting with her back against the arm of the sofa. “Are you alright?” he asked her; he felt rather foolish as the words came out of his mouth, for the answer was right there in front of him.</p>
<p>He watched her wipe her tears with an anger he knew was directed inwardly. It did no good, however. The tears continued to fall, as if there was a tap inside her that had been jammed open. There was so little he could do for her, so he lit her a cigarette. To his relief, she accepted it and took a long drag from it, her hands quaking. He sat down on the sofa, in front of her legs.</p>
<p>Lix always was pale, but she was rarely ghostly. She could not speak – if she could, she would have done by now – and her lips seemed to tremble with the force of what she tried to hold within herself.</p>
<p>Randall put his hands on her cheeks and brushed her tears out with his thumbs; it agitated the cut on his hand but that did not matter. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You can tell me all about it when you feel a bit better, if you want.”</p>
<p>At that, she fell forwards and buried her face into his neck. He took her cigarette from her hand and stretched over to stub it out in the ashtray. All he could do was put his hand on the back of her head and hold her close. Nothing else he did was going to provide much comfort to her, so he did whatever he could. It wasn’t much, but it was what they had.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. The Ship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The fire burned in the hearth; staring into it, Randall was reminded of that nightmare. How it had shaken him. The very idea that he might lose Lix, to fire or to the ice around his own soul, scared him stiff. It drove his meltdown in the kitchen, and it incited him to sit here without the words to tell the woman he loved just what he needed her to know. Though it was completely truthful, he thought telling her of his wish for his existence to cease had frightened her.</p>
<p>Perhaps that was what she had dreamt of.</p>
<p>Oh, dear God.</p>
<p>He had caused her to cry in her sleep.</p>
<p>How could he have been so selfish?</p>
<p>Horrible, terrible person.</p>
<p>And in the back of his head, it snapped. The single thread from which he had been dangling broke.</p>
<p>The world was burning, and him with it. The fire followed him wherever he went. If he was not careful, nightmare would become reality and Lix would burn with him.</p>
<p>“Randall?”</p>
<p>He looked up. Lix was sitting opposite him on the floor, legs crossed and a book in her lap.</p>
<p>“Sorry, I was miles away.”</p>
<p>“Are you okay?”</p>
<p>Randall did not manage an answer. Instead, he studied her. She seemed happy. Happy enough, at least. She frowned now, though, at his silence. To shatter it would be to throw petrol over an already furious fire. One word of it might break them. Break her. He couldn’t have that.</p>
<p>It would have to be distance they shared now. Closeness was no longer an option, not if he was going to be stuck with this mind and heart forever.</p>
<p>He got to his feet and went to the front door. The blackness on the other side of the pane of glass invited him outwards, to the cold that might finally take him.</p>
<p>If only it could be that simple.</p>
<p>Lix would not take it.</p>
<p>
  <em>Well, for one thing, I’d be utterly miserable.</em>
</p>
<p>Would she say that if she didn’t mean it? To make sure it wasn’t on her watch that a life ended? A sense of personal responsibility more than a wish to have him around.</p>
<p>“Randall.”</p>
<p>He stopped dead, but did not turn.</p>
<p>“You didn’t let me walk out that door, and I won’t let you.”</p>
<p>Her hand took his without warning; to turn and face her was involuntary. He had to see what she looked like. Assess the damage done.</p>
<p>“Talk to me. Please.”</p>
<p>“And give you another nightmare? I think not.”</p>
<p>Lix stared at him intensely for a moment and then – to his shock – let out a laugh. “You mean when I fell asleep earlier? That wasn’t about you! It wasn’t even a nightmare!”</p>
<p>“You were bawling!”</p>
<p>“Dreams aren’t split into utopic tales of ecstasy and horrific and terrifying nightmares, Randall. There are other dreams.”</p>
<p>“Then what was it?”</p>
<p>Lix, her hand still in his, leaned into the wall. “I dreamt that the two of you met. You and Sofia.”</p>
<p>Randall had expected something else. Suicide or murder or entrapment. Somehow, this was worse. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“You talked,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You talked over at a table while I stood at the bar with my father. I don’t know what you said to one another. It’s not my business, just as my conversations with my dad shouldn’t have been my mother’s business.”</p>
<p>“Were…” he began to ask, but decided not to. That wasn’t fair. She had seen it once, and he refused to ask her to think about it.</p>
<p>“Ask,” Lix urged him. Randall fell back against the cold door and let his bear his weight. “Ask whatever you want to know.”</p>
<p>“Were we happy? With each other?”</p>
<p>“Yes. She loved you.”</p>
<p>“How could you tell?”</p>
<p>“The way she looked at you. And she had the guts to call us idiots,” she added, smiling slightly. “For dancing around reality. She had your hair. My frown, which I got from my father.”</p>
<p>Randall chuckled, for all the times he had told her to stop frowning or she would give herself a headache. Lix laughed too; perhaps she remembered the same thing. “So you were crying because…”</p>
<p>“Because I wanted to stay there. With her. With you. What we might have been.”</p>
<p>He thought he could understand that. He had woke her and pulled her from comfort into a world where she had lost all she had found in a dream.</p>
<p>She stood straight once more and surveyed him carefully. In that moment, all was lost. All defence, all disguise, all distance, it disappeared. “I thought,” he said quietly, “I’d scared you with my, well, with the idea that I’m less than eager to exist.”</p>
<p>“Suicidal.”</p>
<p>“Lix-”</p>
<p>“Call it for what it is, Randall. You’ll never win a game you refuse to name.” She pulled him by the hand back to the sitting room and the warmth of the fire. “Do you think I’m scared of the word?”</p>
<p>“No. No, you’re braver than that,” he admitted. “Me, on the other hand, I’m a coward.”</p>
<p>“You’re not. Fear isn’t cowardly, Randall.”</p>
<p>“I’m afraid of my own thoughts.”</p>
<p>“I know,” she said. “Many a-night have I been terrified by the things I’ve thought about doing to myself, too. But that fear is the reason I’m still here. That fear means it isn’t death you want; what you really want, I think, is to live without feeling like you’re dying.”</p>
<p>He said nothing. What could he say to her when she already knew? She had said it better and more succinctly than he could. Instead, he went to her and fell into her arms. There was a relief in knowing that she did understand. The confirmation that she did care and she wasn’t scared of him was enough to make him take the final step into a darkness he had never quite been able to comprehend before now.</p>
<p>Of course, he had stumbled around in the dark for much of his life. This was the first time he had encountered a darkness in which there was light to be found. Millions of the tiniest, dimmest lights, invisible to his naked eye, and yet he knew that if he could just get enough of them together, the light would grow. It would be sustainable. And Lix was waiting, a magnet around which the lights might gather. What Randall had to do was stick with her. Trust her. Love her. She might not be the light, but she was where the light could be found.</p>
<p>“There aren’t many things I know for certain,” Lix said gently into his ear, “but I do know this: the ship isn’t sinking. We are together, and we are still very much afloat. It takes far more than a dream, or getting drunk, or a smashed jam jar, or a wish for death to sink any ship built by us. Not even the worst kind of grief will sink us.</p>
<p>It was an enormous amount of faith to have in them. In him. He might sink the ship alone and drown her with himself. How could she trust him not to do that?</p>
<p>Her hand came up to rest on the back of his head.</p>
<p>“It isn’t a fifty-fifty split in a relationship,” she said. “Not all the time. Sometimes I’ll only be able to bring twenty percent and you’ll make up the difference. Sometimes I’ll have to make up the difference when you struggle too. It’s okay to expect that. You don’t have to hide things from me, or presume yourself to be the big bad demon who made me cry. I don’t want that from you.”</p>
<p>Randall pulled himself away; he checked her face, for he could scarcely believe the allowance she was giving him. “You don’t want me to be infallible?”</p>
<p>“Why would I want you to be something no human is capable of being?”</p>
<p>He was the luckiest man on the planet. That in itself solved very little, of course, but it was the solid ground he needed if he ever was going to solve his own problems. “I love you,” he said.</p>
<p>“And I love you.” Lix smiled up at him. “Nothing matters more than that right now.”</p>
<p>It was a longstanding instinct of Randall’s to point out the things that might outstrip their love in terms of importance to the world outwith these walls, but he bit it back. That world could wait. It was just going have to wait on them to be ready to deal with it.</p>
<p>One thing lightened the weight he carried on his back: her dream had not been his fault. He had not terrified her as he had believed he had. He resolved to ask her someday how she was able to be so blunt about the notion, and so freely mention to him that her mind had gone into similar territory, but not tonight.</p>
<p>He refused to surrender his evening with the woman he loved to a mind that seemed to have a vendetta against him.</p>
<p>Tonight was theirs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Charlotte and Esther</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>Pub lunches were something Randall had generally done alone until now. He perhaps had talked to anyone who came his way, but he arrived and left in his usual solitary manner.</p>
<p>So when, on the final day of their trip, Sandy and Charlotte McPhee invited Randall and Lix to the pub for lunch, he was surprised. He knew them, of course, and he considered them friends, but it was unusual for them to invite him anywhere which wasn’t their cottage or camp. The grandchildren staying with Sandy and Charlotte had been told that when they got out of school, they were to play in the square outside the pub, and one of them was to come in and inform the adults they were there.</p>
<p>Maggie joined them, too, and found herself in deep conversation with Randall. He listened to them on the sly as he ate his steak pie and Charlotte, Sandy and David talked about where they intended to travel when the weather improved; as Charlotte rightly pointed out, the weather was set to worsen and the children still had to clock up their school hours, so those talks were premature.</p>
<p>“What is it you’d like to do, Maggie?” asked Lix.</p>
<p>“You’ll laugh.”</p>
<p>“I won’t.”</p>
<p>“I want to be a midwife.”</p>
<p>“Why on Earth would I laugh at that ambition?” said Lix incredulously.</p>
<p>Maggie shrugged. “I suppose most people would look at where I came from and think I’d be no use at it.”</p>
<p>Something occurred to Randall: the reason Maggie wanted to move to a city was that she wanted to go to school and stay there. She couldn’t do that when she constantly had to move with her family.</p>
<p>Lix took a sip of whisky. “I look at your background and I see a young woman who has seen the perils of maternity combined with hardship and would have not only the skills needed to do the job, but the real world knowledge and experience that would make you the ideal midwife for those who need the most support.”</p>
<p>The girl gaped at Lix; Randall knew she would struggle with the idea that someone would take her upbringing and acknowledge its value.</p>
<p>“I come from a place of privilege, Maggie, but I’m not naïve. I know how lucky – in some ways – I was to be born into the family I found myself in. The only things separating you from me are luck and geography.” Lix glanced at Randall, who quickly looked down at his plate. “So what we do, is we get you through your school exams and get you into nursing school.”</p>
<p>“But I’ll have to live in the nurses’ home and I don’t want to do that. The idea of anyone, let alone a stranger, having that much control over my life is just scunnerful.”</p>
<p>“You won’t. You’ll be living with guardians appointed by your parents and your nursing school will accept that.”</p>
<p>“What makes you so sure?”</p>
<p>Randall lifted his head and looked over at Maggie, then to Lix. “They wouldn’t dare refuse. Never underestimate Lix Storm’s ability to get her own way, Maggie.”</p>
<p>Lix beamed at him; he couldn’t help but smirk at her self-assurance in this, so lacking as it was in other departments. Randall’s attention was diverted, however, when Esther (this time without the ribbons she so hated) bounded across the pub. The clock put them at two in the afternoon, and so the bell would have just rung.</p>
<p>Esther came between her grandparents’ chairs and said, “That’s us a’ oot, Granny.”</p>
<p>“Right ye are,” smiled Charlotte. “Keep yer nose clean.”</p>
<p>“Aye,” Esther said. She rolled her eyes, to which Charlotte pinged her nose with two of her fingers. The girl laughed, and Charlotte grinned. It was difficult to believe this was a woman who had once made an attempt upon her own life. Her granddaughter jogged out of the building to her siblings and her cousins.</p>
<p>“Taks aifter her granny, thon bairn,” Sandy said into his pint glass. “She’s aye had a nerve an’ a’.”</p>
<p>Charlotte jabbed Sandy with her elbow and, while Lix and Maggie fell back into conversation, Randall found himself fascinated by this woman. She was more like him than he had ever thought she might be: had lost a child, had realised the hard way she could not drink, had wanted her existence to end…but was still here and was still sober and was still obviously in love.</p>
<p>He must have stared, because when Charlotte looked at him next, her expression was of curiosity, mingled with concern and the usual foreboding the woman always emanated. “What’s the matter, Randall?”</p>
<p>As ever, Randall hesitated. Had this been an interview, he would have jumped straight in, but as soon as he asked Charlotte anything, she would know he was vulnerable. Not only that, but she would know what Sandy had told him. This was something he needed to ask, though. An answer he needed. “Are you glad you survived?” he asked her, quietly enough that her husband and children, deep in discussion as they were, would not hear her.</p>
<p>Charlotte held still for a moment, her cutlery hovering over her plate as she considered him. “Most o’ the time, aye, I’m glad.”</p>
<p>“It was worth the pain?”</p>
<p>“Randall, yer worryin’ me now.” She didn’t answer his question until his silence skulked around them like a stalker waiting on its victim. “Aye. It’s worth it. Just there’s times it doesn’t feel it, but then ye get a better day an’ ye ken fine it was lyin’ tae ye.”</p>
<p>“It?”</p>
<p>“The voice,” she said bluntly. “The wee voice whisperin’ in yer heid, tellin’ ye tae dae things that make nae sense.” As she said it, she glanced down at his bandaged hand. Though he was sure Lix had not told her what had happened, it was clear she had guessed the bare bones of it for herself. “I’m no’ blind. I’ve kent ye since the bairns were wee. I can see it in ye. Always could.”</p>
<p>Randall’s mind stumbled over that. Charlotte, for all she was fierce and very much the matriarch, was unassuming. She didn’t voice what she thought most of the time; sometimes Randall reckoned she was simply far too busy to bother. To know that she had seen him for what he was so long ago unnerved him a little, for she had said nothing.</p>
<p>“It’s hard,” she said. “Damn near impossible. But if I’m still sittin’ here, it <em>is</em> possible. If it’s my advice yer lookin’ for, I’d bid ye tae keep love close. That’s the only thing we’ve got. Ev’rythin’ else can be took fae’n under ye, but no’ love.” He looked around at Lix briefly, while she engaged Sandy in conversation now. “An’ aye, that means no’ workin’ the wummin till she flees.”</p>
<p>Charlotte smiled, and Randall saw the shadows of her own life dance upon her face. Truth be told, he had always been a little frightened of her, but then most people were. Underneath her stormy and sometimes authoritarian demeanour, though, was a heart that had been broken so many times that all she wanted was to never have to see anyone else suffer the same torment.</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” he murmured so nobody but Charlotte could hear, “all I want is to die.”</p>
<p>“That never leaves,” she replied. “No’ really. Ye think it does but then yer lyin’ tryin’ tae sleep, or yer pickin’ berries, or hangin’ the washin’, and it sneaks up. It’s a sleekit bastard o’ a thing. What ye live for is the bits in between.”</p>
<p>A hand fell onto his shoulder. He looked up to see Lix standing over him. “I’m just going to the bathroom and then we’ll go,” she said. “Sandy’s invited us back to the cottage, if you’d like to go.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” said Randall, but something had distracted him.</p>
<p>On Lix’s left hand, she wore a ring. The same ring he had once given her, which she had taken to wearing around her neck, as he had discovered upon his return to London. He had thought it best not to ask her about it; he had upended her life enough by his mere reappearance without asking questions like that one. But she had put it on her finger. She had done so without even mentioning it to him, like it was the obvious and natural thing for her to do. It was just the <em>normal</em> thing for her to do.</p>
<p>By the time his brain had unseized itself enough to speak, she was gone. In the time it took her to come back, it occurred to Randall that she didn’t want him to say anything about it. She didn’t want a fuss.</p>
<p>“We’ll go over to the shop and get some cigarettes and a bottle,” Lix said to him as she pulled her coat on, “while this lot get themselves together.” She waited for him to stand and put his own coat on, and then held out her left hand. He took it, and briefly rubbed the ring with his thumb. She gave him a smile, softer than any expression he had ever seen her wear.</p>
<p>At the door, Randall saw it had snowed some more. The sky itself was a greyish white. “Excellent,” he grumbled to himself.</p>
<p>“Oi, ya wee gypo!” a man shouted. The voice, venomous and angry, shattered the peace. Randall looked up and saw the local car mechanic, Kenneth Cairns, grab Esther by the arm. He shook her, and her siblings and cousins stopped their game as they froze with fear into the snow. “Where is it?”</p>
<p>“What?!” Esther asked, clearly panic stricken.</p>
<p>“I left my wallet on the bench beside my messages and now it’s gone!” he snarled, pointing to the bag of food on the bench outside the shop. “You’ve stole it, haven’t you? Hand it over!”</p>
<p>“I’ve no’ touched nae wallet!”</p>
<p>Kenneth grabbed her other arm and shook her harder. At that moment, Randall spotted the wallet lying in the snow behind the man’s car, where it had probably slipped off the bench next to it.</p>
<p>“Yer hurtin’ me, mister!” wailed Esther.</p>
<p>Randall took a step forwards, ready to intervene, but before he got even halfway across the road, Lix was already there. There was nothing he could do. He knew her better than to think there was. It was all he could do to watch while Lix picked the wallet up from behind the car and went to stand before Kenneth Cairns.</p>
<p>Lix slapped Kenneth hard around the side of the head with the wallet. “You obviously didn’t search very thoroughly, did you?” she sneered at him.</p>
<p>“That lassie-”</p>
<p>“Was playing,” Lix cut him off. “Minding her own business. And because you lost your wallet while she was in the vicinity, you decided not to retrace your steps, but instead blame the nearest scapegoat you could find!”</p>
<p>“She’s a tinker! What was I supposed to think?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” Lix said scathingly, gently moving Esther behind her legs. “Is it such a wild notion that ‘Traveller’ does not equate to ‘thief,’ or would that make the shrivelled walnut you have for a brain explode in a puff of dust?!”</p>
<p>Randall looked to his right to see Sandy beside him; he seemed as angry as Randall knew he would be, but he was also perfectly alright with letting Lix tear Kenneth limb from limb if she so desired.</p>
<p>“If I <em>ever</em> see you lay your hands on a child again,” she said, “it will be the last thing anyone ever sees you do.”</p>
<p>With that, Lix bent slightly and hauled Esther up to sit on her hip; at seven years of age, Esther was no longer tiny, but Lix had no objection to carrying her across the road, with every other child in the family trailing behind her. “Are you alright, Esther?” she asked gently.</p>
<p>Esther, though obviously stunned by the whole ordeal, nodded her head. “I’m fine.” She stared at Lix for a moment, and then flung her arms around her neck in a hug. “Thank you.”</p>
<p>“You are most welcome, darling.”</p>
<p>Randall watched them silently. At least now he knew what would have come at any force which tried to harm their daughter in Lix’s presence.</p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Inchmagrannachan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Snow began to fall around them as they sat with blankets around a blazing fire. The children were long since asleep by now, their parents with them. Only Randall, Lix, Sandy, Charlotte and Maggie remained. “Inchmagrannachan,” said Charlotte, staring into the fire. Randall looked over at her. He knew at once what she was thinking of; she had told him of this before. He knew it haunted her even now. Even he had never been able to find a rational explanation for it.</p><p>“What’s that?” asked Lix.</p><p>“It’s a place down near Dunkeld,” Randall said.</p><p>“Dae ye want tae hear a story, Lix?” Charlotte asked. The light of the fire caused her eyes to flash in the darkness. Randall almost shook himself, only as a reminder that this story could surely be nothing to fear.</p><p>“Of course,” she said.</p><p>“Years an’ years ago now,” began Charlotte, “I had a baby. Henry. Tiny wee thing he wis. An’ he died. I’ll spare ye gory details but we’ll say I didnae tak’ it v’ry guid.”</p><p>Lix swallowed. “Understandably.”</p><p>“The next year, we pit up a camp near the place he died. Nae intention o’ it, mair a coincidence than any’hin’ else. Inchmagrannachan, the place wis called. We still bide there sometimes. It wisnae dark yet, but the light wis goin’, an’ I was in the tent wi’ the bairns. Sandy wis away walkin’ thon sister o’ his intae Dunkeld. This man comes up tae the tent. First thing I dae is stand between him and the bairns but he didnae want any trouble. I seen that in the man’s face. An’ he was wearin’ a uniform. A signalman’s uniform. He says tae me, “Are you Charlotte?” He kent I wis, ‘cause he sat doon in the snow at the front o’ the tent. Nae seat nor nothin’. Straight ontae the snow.”</p><p>Randall, anticipating that this story might cause some upset, reached out and took Lix’s hand into his. Charlotte took a drink from her mug of tea. Lix looked around at him, her eyes wider than usual. He was sure the fire and the whisky had something to do with that, but there was something else there.</p><p>Charlotte rested the mug on her knee. “The man telt me he seen a baby. A wee boy. He wis wi’ Mariah. She wis ma mother. Died when I wis six. This man said he watched her wi’ my wee baby. “Must be your baby, missus,” he telt me, “for he has your eyes and your spirit,”” she continued, imitating the man’s middling Perthshire accent.</p><p>“He meant <em>your</em> baby? The one you lost?” Lix said. Her voice was barely a whisper.</p><p>Maybe he should have warned Charlotte off this story. He should have known better than to let Lix hear it. But then, hadn’t he promised to stop being overprotective? As she had once said, the world did not alter for them as grieving parents. It was still the same world. Was it fair to ruin her view of that world by standing between her and it?</p><p>Charlotte drank from her mug again before he answered, “Aye.”</p><p>Randall glanced over to Maggie; she listened intently, her eyes fixed onto the fire, even though she had heard this story all her life. Sandy reached out and put his arm around his daughter.</p><p>“How could he see that? If Henry was dead?”</p><p>“I never fun’ that oot.”</p><p>Lix said nothing.</p><p>“Sandy got back,” said Charlotte. “The sister wis bidin’ in Dunkeld thon night. He asked wha the man wis. The man got up and he said, “Andrew Sword, sir,” and he shook Sandy’s hand. He went. Here’s the funny thing: there wis nae footprints. Nae marks where he sat in the snow. Nae trace o’ him ever bein’ there. But he wis there. Sure as the Orkney in my blood, Andrew Sword wis there.”</p><p>“Did you ever find out who Andrew Sword was?” Lix asked. Randall almost smiled. Of course, her mind went straight to the identity of the man.</p><p>“I asked ‘roon Dunkeld fur a few days,” said Sandy, “’til an auld wummin telt me Andrew Sword wis the railway signalman at Inchmagrannachan. There wis a signal box there fur years. Andrew Sword wis fae Dunkeld; he had a pushbike he took doon tae work. He fell off it one mornin’ near the signal box, hit his heid an’ died. In 1909.”</p><p>It never failed to put ice in Randall’s spine. He’d heard it before, more than once, but the fact that there was no explanation for it, supported by the laws of what the knew of the natural world, unnerved him more with ever retelling. Now more than ever. Now he was in the throes of his own grief, the idea that the dead might linger on the Earth both fascinated him and completely terrified him.</p><p>Lix was gazing straight into Charlotte. “How do you explain such a thing?”</p><p>“Cannae explain it,” Charlotte replied. “Some things cannae be explained. An’ that’s awright. How may times dae ye hear a footstep an’ naeb’dy there? Or a curtain move an’ nae breeze? Wee things ye jist <em>cannae</em> explain?”</p><p>Randall looked down into the snow. He had believed in none of this before he knew Charlotte and Sandy. When one hears a story like that one, however, one is forced to think upon one’s convictions. He had realised years ago that his lack of belief in anything beyond his own current knowledge might well have come from the fear that it was all real. If ghosts existed, did monsters exist too? If monsters existed, then what about demons? What else was out there to bring him harm? This world was chaos as it was; humanity had never needed any help when it came to causing misery.</p><p>Lix retracted her hand to take the whisky bottle Sandy offered her. She seemed a little shaken, but not knocked off her feet. He knew she tried not to believe in these things, too. Much like him, she preferred to steep herself in what was obviously rational. The experience of having that safety zone breached was never a comfortable one.</p><p>“When I was a girl,” she said quietly as she poured herself another drink, “there was one room in my aunt’s house we never went in. We were never explicitly forbidden from entering, but the door was always closed and none of the adults ever opened it. As children, we assumed it was disused and we stayed out. Except once. My cousin and I were curious. We went in. It was a bedroom. A double room – at first I wondered why my aunt didn’t use it herself or give it to her oldest son. Then we saw him. A boy of about fifteen, lying on the bed with a book. He got up, smiled at us, and walked out of the room. We searched the entire house for him but he was just <em>gone</em>. Needless to say, we were never brave enough to go in there again, nor did we dare tell my aunt.”</p><p>He frowned. She had never told him that. But then why would she? It wasn’t something they had really touched upon before now. He just thought it important enough an experience to share. “Some things,” Randall said, “just can’t be explained. Not with what we know now. Perhaps someone, one day in the future, will figure out how and why these things happen.”</p><p>“An’ ‘til that day, we jist huv tae live wi’ n’ver understandin’,” concurred Charlotte. “This is folk wha owned the world’s room as much as we own it the now. They’ll nae hurt us.”</p><p>“I’m fine with not knowing,” Lix said. “I think there are things – not very many of them, but some – whose mystery saves humanity from itself. Can you imagine what certain people would do with that kind of knowledge? Can you imagine what knowing might do to people? We’re better off not knowing.”</p><p>“You’re right,” Maggie agreed. Randall looked up at her, surprised to hear her speak. “We can see them, talk to them, maybe even touch them. We can handle that. Most of us anyway. But understanding why? It’s probably so intense and complicated and frightening, human minds wouldn’t be able to cope. We’d either become reckless with a death wish or we’d go to idiotic lengths to put death off.”</p><p>“Maybe there’s things we’re nae meant tae ken aboot,” said Sandy.</p><p>That didn’t sit right with Randall. He liked to know the reason for everything. How things happened. Why they happened. But then look what had happened when he went looking for Sofia. Sometimes knowledge carried a heavy price. He wouldn’t say he was better off not knowing, for he had needed that ending to the story, however tragic, but it was a burden now. A burden he had to learn to bear.</p><p>And it wasn’t really the end, anyway. He had Lix. Knowledge had taken his peace of mind with one hand but given him Lix with the other hand.</p><p>It wasn’t until they got out the car back at his house that he asked her, “Why did you never mention the room you and your cousin went into?”</p><p>As he unlocked the door and went inside, Lix said, “It’s not a story people feel comfortable hearing. I suppose I was afraid you’d think me mad, the unwaveringly sensible man you are.”</p><p>“I heard that story of Charlotte’s years ago,” he admitted. “I tried and tried to find a reasonable explanation for it. I even went through records to see if Andrew Sword had a son who took over the job. He didn’t. The signalman at that time was someone completely unrelated.” He hung up his coat and hat. “I was forced to the conclusion that, somehow, Charlotte McPhee saw Andrew Sword that night, years after he died.”</p><p>“Do you believe in it?”</p><p>“In what?”</p><p>“In the idea that the dead…their <em>spirits</em> can be here. Somewhere.”</p><p>“Well, unless Charlotte is a liar, there’s no denying it, is there?”</p><p>Lix chuckled. “Ever the journalist, Randall,” she said with a smile. She hung up her own coat and placed her hands on his waist. “We smell of smoke.”</p><p>“Camp reek,” Randall said, “as they would call it.”</p><p>A light flickered in her eyes, threatening to extinguish itself. He realised now she wanted to believe in ghosts. Before now, she might have been more sceptical, but now it was something she needed to believe. Randall knew why: if it was real, then maybe some trace of their daughter remained on this Earth. “I think,” he said carefully, “some souls must linger. Which ones, I cannot say, but maybe Charlotte is right. Maybe that footstep without a foot or that curtain moving without a breeze is one of those souls, hidden in the space between life and death.”</p><p>Lix sighed and leaned her head against his chest. “Maybe she knows we love her, then.”</p><p>He placed a hand on her head, his other arm wrapped around her. “Maybe she does.”</p>
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